

Si 



11 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. | 



Shelf . -_^0^— - 



% UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



I 



A SALON 

IX 

THE LAST DAYS OE THE EMPIEE, 

Bt GEACE RAMSAY, 

ArTHOB OF "iza's stoey," "a woman's teials," "bells of the 

SANCTUAEY," ETC, 




LONDON : 

RICHARD BBNTLET AND SON, 
Pnblisljjrs in ©rbiitarg ia pur pajtstg, 
NEW BURLINGTOIT STREET. 

1873. 

The right of Translation is reserved. 



IBeprintedj in jpart^from tTie GatTioUc World, New YorJc.'] 



.0 5 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. The Paeisienne en Deshabille 1 

II. The Business of Life 22 

III. Extremes Meet 43 

IV. " Wanted Three Millions " 75 

Y. A Berlin 116 

VL " Awakening " 137 

YII. Excelsior! 167 

Mademoiselle Adrienne — A Sketch after the 

Blocus , 197 



Number Thirteen — An Episode or Two Sieges 203 



A SALO^f m THE LAST DAYS 
OF THE EMPIRE. 



I. 

THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 

It was not twelve o'clock. 'No one con- 
versant with civilised life in Paris would 
commit the absurdity of calling to see a 
Parisienne at that hour ; but being among 
the intimes, to whom my friend's door was 
never closed, 'I made no scruple of breaking 
in on her deshabille. 

Francois, the valet- de-chambre, was still in 
petite tenue when he answered my summons, 
Madame la Comtesse n est pas chez elle; 
mais madame pent entrer ! " he said, and 

went on tickling the panoply and the picture- 

1 



2 



THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



frames in tlie ante-cliamber with the tips of 
Ms plumeau. I passed into the grand salon, 
which was empty, to the petit salon where 
madame usually sat when she left her room 
in the morning to devote an hour or so to 
improving her mind, and storing it with 
such intellectual food as suited her appetite 
and her monde. The wholesome meal, com- 
posed of the Vie Parisienne," Feydeau s last 
novel, and the inevitable piece de resistance, 
" Figaro," was made ready on the chiffoniere 
beside the sofa where madame reclined 
during the process of study; but she was 
not there. The door of the bed-room was 
ajar; I raised the portiere and passed in. 
Let me describe this room ; it may be taken 
as a type of its class. The walls were hung 
with light-blue satin damask, relieved by a 
silver border ; curtains and portieres of blue 
satin, caught up by massive silver ropes, 
fell in rich drapery from two windows and 
four doors, and filled the room with an azure 
twilight. The dressing-table, placed between 
the windows, was a miracle of artistic bubble 



THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



3 



evolved out of satin and lace ; its silver- 
framed mirror reflected, from beneatli, a 
regiment of vermilion pliials and boxes and ^ 
brushes, and a variety of cunning little 
implements instinct v^ith some occult power 
of beautifying for ever'' — in fact, every con- 
ceivable apparatus for the adorning or dis- 
figuring of the human face and head. 
Opposite to the mirror stood the bed. The 
wood-work, like the rest of the furniture, 
was in azure-blue laquer; a double set of 
curtains, lace falling under the blue lined 
with quilted white satin, fell from a canopy 
fastened to the ceiling, and fringed with blue 
and silver. Shaded by these appropriate 
surroundings was a large ivory crucifix. 
The panels of the blue-laquer wardrobe were 
mirrors ; a full length mirror a cheval stood 
opposite to it, so placed that no aspect of 
the occupant's dress and figure could escape 
her admiring or critical eye. There were 
blue couches and causeuses with the most • 
elastic of spring seats, placed here and there 
about the luxurious little temple, and in the 



4 



THE PARISTENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



centre of the flowery Aubusson carpet stood 
a Louis-Quinze pouflF, embroidered by her 
% own fair fingers. 

I did not wait to scan the details of the 
room on this particular mormng. I knew 
every object in it by heart ; but had it been 
otherwise, I was too much startled by a 
presence that met my view on entering, to 
take note of anything else. 

Close by the Louis-Quinze pouff stood a 
man. A man got up m all the outward 
trappings of a gentleman : an extensive dis- 
play of snowy linen, unimpeachable tailoring, 
gante, botte, in perfection ; nothing overdone. 

Whatever my feelings were on beholding 
him, it was quite clear his underwent no shock 
whatever on beholding me. He bowed very 
low ; rather too low, it struck me. I sat down 
under the shadow of the nearest curtain, and 
took up the '•'Gaulois" — it had evidently been 
just tossed open on the gueridon in the act of 
being read — and I began to discuss within 
myself who this man could be, and what kind 
of business had brought him vf here he was. 



THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



5 



My friend was a widow, and had neither 
father, brother, nor nncle hving. The 
stranger was not her medical man, I knew. 
Who could he be ? He was tall, young, and 
decidedly good-looking. I puzzled over it to 
no purpose. T looked up and down the edify- 
ing columns of the ^^Gaulois" in hopes of their 
suggesting a clue to his identity ; but the 
" Gaulois " suggested nothing. After about ten 
minutes of this fruitless cogitation, our juxta- 
position — he standing, twirling his moustache, 
or making a show of examining the weather 
through the lace maze of the window, I sitting 
in confidential discourse with the Gaulois " — 
struck me as so unendurably grotesque that I 
resolved, by way of diversion, to make a sortie. 
The weather, the kind weather, always at hand 
for distressed conversationalists, came to my 
rescue. 

Quelle chaleur etouffante !" I remarked. 
Effectivement, madame, on etouffe." 
'^Je ne me rappelle pas un ete pareil a 
Paris." 

M moi non plus, madame." 



6 THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



Here the conversation broke down. 

It left me where I was when it began. 
Suddenly the thought occurred to me that he 
was the dentist. 

There was nothing for it, however, but to 
wait patiently till my friend came in to clear 
up the mystery. Her voice, in animated dis- 
course with Clarisse, the femme-de-chambre, 
was audible from the cabinet-de-toilette next 
door. In a few minutes the door opened, and 
my friend, gliding like a blonde nymph from 
under the blue cloud of portiere, made her 
appearance. 

She nodded en passant to the profuse bow 
of the gentleman, who immediately drew off 
his lavender gloves with the air of a man 
preparing for work ; and then, taking no 
more heed of him than if he had been a bottle 
on the toilet-table, she embraced me, and 
broke out into inquiries about my health, and 
gossip about our mutual neighbours. 

Clarisse meantime rolled out a low arm- 
chair to the middle of the room, placed a 
diminutive table beside it covered with a nap- 



THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 7 



kin, on which were set out several crystals, etc., 
and a small cushion. The gentleman took a 
chair on the other side of the table, opened a 
dainty morocco case, from which he drew two 
or three tiny brushes, and what appeared to 
me some surgical instruments. 

It is the dentist!'' I mentally concluded, 
and forthwith felt a sympathetic thrill of 
horror. But a glance at the face of my friend 
checked the thrill. 

There was no expectation in those spark- 
ling eyes of anything approaching to the 
horrors of dentistry or to horrors of any kind; 
and two pearly rows of teeth that glistened 
through the laughing red lips seemed to 
rebuke me mockingly for the injurious sus- 
picion. 

C^est pret, Madame la Comtesse," said 
Clarisse. The lady took her seat in the 
causeuse, adjusted her arm comfortably on the 
cushion, and extended her hand to the gen- 
tleman opposite. 

The mystery was solved. He was the 
manucure. Though I had lived all my life in 



8 THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 

Paris, and knew that sucli an industrie was 
carried on by needy women, and patronized 
by fashionable women, it was the first time I 
became aware that it counted male practi- 
tioners, that men devoted their time and 
energies to the trimming and polishing of 
ladies' nails. The fact that such is the case, 
and that women of high rank and immaculate 
reputation make a practice of employing 
male manucures, is so significantly cha- 
racteristic of the tone of society in Paris, 
that it would be superfluous to moralize 
upon it. 

My friend was one of the loveliest women 
in Paris ; a widow, young, rich, and, in spite 
of these dangerous attributes, universally 
admired and respected. She was, in the re- 
putable sense of the word, une femme a la 
mode. Her salon was frequented by the 
leading men in every department — art, 
science, literature, and fashion ; politicians of 
all colours met there on neutral ground. A 
salon is no longer in France the great insti- 
tution it was in the days of the Hotel Ram- 



THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



9 



bouillet, or the Boudoir Pompadour, where 
tlie strings of home and foreign affairs 
were pulled by the fair fingers of noble or 
ignoble beauties ; when a war could not be 
declared, or a new word adopted, or a new 
law promulgated, till each had been can- 
vassed and carried in the counsels of the fair 
despots and pedagogues who ruled alike over 
the palace and the academy. Those days of 
woman's tyranny have passed away, and with 
them much of the cultivated grace and native 
genius that made her sway at once so dan- 
gerous and so fascinating. Yet there is no de- 
nying that the salon d^une joUe femme is, even 
in this degenerate age, an agent of conside- 
rable social power in Paris. To bejolie femme 
in the city of art and pleasure includes some- 
thing more than the mere possession of a 
pretty face, a possession in itself no despicable 
element of happiness and power to women all 
over the world ; but which in Paris compre- 
hends a wider and more heterogeneous em- 
pire than in any city under the sun. Beauty 
is there a recognized supremacy before which 



10 THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



all men, the wise and the foolish, the old and 
the young, bow down, not merely in idle 
flattery, but in genuine reverence, in the 
belief that it is one of those things set up 
by Nature for especial worship — a sort of 
demigod, endowed with goodly, humanizing 
attributes, very kindly and beneficial to the 
rougher animal, man. Grey-headed states- 
men, who would hardly condescend to discuss 
the question of their separate porte-feuilles 
with intelligent men outside the radius of 
their particular spheres, will enter quite con- 
fidentially into discourse on such grave topics 
with the jolie femme ; and when she responds 
to the veteran homage, as the genuine jolie 
femme invariably does, with a tact all her own, 
by eyes that sparkle brighter with listening 
interest, and a countenance alive with intel- 
ligent sympathy, it is quite a study to see 
how seriously and how gratefully the response 
is acknowledged. She is sure to want some 
point elucidated. 

C'est si precieux pour moi de pouvoir 
m'instruire aupres d'un homme comme vous, 



THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 11 



M. le Ministre ! Les autres ne me parlent que 
de betises ; mais vous, yous etes si aimable, 
que YOUS ne dedaignez pas de causer raison 
aYec une pauYre petite ignorante comme moi. 
Expliquez-moi done/' etc. 

And, of course, M. le Ministre ex- 
plains. 

So in turn cYery male superiority goes up 
to the shrine and worships, each contributing 
some store of logic or learning to the fair 
diYinity. The naturalist talks to her of his 
traYels, the man of science of his experiments, 
the diplomatist giYes her the gossip of foreign 
courts ; sometimes more serious items of ia- 
formation when she chooses to extract them. 
They all conspire to educate her. The poet 
and the dramatist take their MSS. to her for 
private inspection, not so much with a Yiew 
to proYoke criticism or eulogy, as for the deli- 
cious flattery of her admiring attention. The 
kindling glance of her eyes, smiling or tear- 
ful at will, the graceful clapping of pretty 
hands that accompany her gushing exclama- 
tions of delight, make up a more sympathetic 



12 THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



audience for tlie French man of letters than 
the choicest Areopagus of intellectual equals. 
The result of this desultory but sustained 
education is, that the jolie femme, who starts 
at a considerable disadvantage of learning, 
and even of natural ability, with her plainer 
sisterhood, very soon outstrips them. She 
culls as she goes along ; the gleaning requires 
no effort ; she has but to stretch out a deft but 
careless hand to take from the feast of know- 
ledge spread all around her in its most attrac- 
tive form. Under such circumstances the jolie 
femme, unless she be born a fool, generally 
developes into the femme d'esprit. She soon 
tires of the simpering dandy, who can only 
tell her she is beautiful ; even on this graceful 
theme the changes must be rung cleverly and 
delicately to find favour in her ears ; the 
enfant gatee of talent in its most varied 
and influential representatives, has no room 
for fools in her temple thronged by such 
votaries. 

The Comtesse Berthe is an accomplished 
type of the jolie femme. She is accomplished 



THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHA.BILLE. 13 



in no other sense. She is not a clever woman ; 
inteUigent is the utmost that could be said for 
her native endowments ; yet I have often sat 
dumb with surprise while she held forth on 
some knotty political question, running 
through the rings of a diplomatic puzzle as 
lightly and as easily as a musician modulates 
a series of intricate chords and gradually 
resolves them to the tonic. 

^'How in the name of the fairies did you 
get at that precedent of Charles Quint and 
Ximenes, my dear Berthe ? " I asked one 
day, when the crowd had dispersed after lis- 
tening to her holding her own against an 
octogenarian senator who had a thousand to 
one her sense. 

^^Cherie, M. del " (the Spanish 

ambassador) ''has been in here all the 
morning, boring me with the story of that 
row between the Queen and the Cortes. 
G'etait a dormir deb out ; but he told some 
amusing incidents of Spanish history to 
make me take in the point at issue. That 
one of Charles Quint and the Cardinal came 



14 THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



in apropos just now, and I applied it. Yoila 
toute ma recherclie ! " 

So it was on every subject. She was 
a plagiarist unconsciously. She caught the 
tone, and, to a certain extent, the wit, of 
the clever men who surrounded her, quoting 
their sayings and opinions, till, by force 
of habit, she grew to fancy them her own. 

But to return to the manucure. He 
was busily working away at the fair hand 
that resigned itself passively to his beautify- 
ino; skill. First he soaked the fin2:ers in 
some fragrant essence, whose virtue it was 
to render the naiJs pliable ; then he filed 
them ; then he alternately anointed them 
with pomm,ade a la Beine, and brushed 
them with poiiclre a Vlmperatrice^ and 
polished them off with creme a Vinvisihle^ 
and finally perfumed them with haiime a 
V impossible. 

While this operation was going on, the 
patient and I conversed as unreservedly as 
if the operator had been a machine, set 
going by an electric battery, or a dumb 



THE PxiRISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



15 



animal, devoid of ears to hear, and a brain 
to understand. 'No part of the proceeding 
amused me more than this. While the 
man rubbed away at her hand, she ran on 
discussing her own and her friend's most 
private and intimate concerns ; just as if 
he had been a bear at the North Pole. 
Suddenly she turned her head towards him, 
and began watching, abstractedly, his mani- 
pulation. Yous soignez les mains de ma 

Yoisine, la Marquise de B , I think?" 

she said. 

I have that honour, madame. It is 
one of my most agreeable pratiques. Une 
femme distinguee et on ne pent plus sym- 
pathique." 

He was at the third finger now. As 
he finished each, he laid the hand on his 
coat-sleeve, and held it towards the light 
to judge of the effect. The nails glistened 
with every tender shade of pink and white, 
like enamelled rose-leaves, as they came 
from his powder and paste. 

'•'Her sister is handsomer," remarked 



16 THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



my friend, not the least ruffled by the cool 
impertinence of his comment on her neigh- 
bour, the Marquise. 

" Handsomer, yes, I am of the opinion 
of Madame la Comtesse ; but she lacks that 
supreme distinction which captivates in 
Madame la Marquise." 

She has a pretty hand," I observed, 
by way of leading the creature back to his 
proper walk; ''she does your skill credit; 
it must be discourao^ino- to take so much 
trouble, and waste so much ability, on an 
ugly hand.'' 

'' That is quite a secondary consideration 
with me," he replied, with a smile of serene 
benevolence, that rebuked my low estimate 
of his character and profession. ''The first 
thing I look for in my patients is that 
they should be des femmes distiiiguees, and 
that they should be sympathetic to me. 
My large connection enables me, happily, 
to choose my subjects, and I never accept 
one that does not realize to my eyes, those 
two conditions. I have but the embarras 



THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 17 

du cJioix^ see ! " lie pulled a blue and gold 
carnet out of liis waistcoat pocket, opened 
it, and ran liis fingers down several pages, 
covered witli addresses. Behold, tlie mul- 
titude of my engagements ! There are ten 
marquises, fifteen countesses, and wives of 
bankers, and such like, without end, count- 
ing on me at this moment. Does madame 
think I shall attend them all ? 'No ; my 
life, if its days numbered twenty-four hours 
instead of twelve, would not suffice. I 
multiply myself in vain ; I cannot arrive 
at contenting all. I am compelled to select 
a few out of the multitude. This morning, 
I was stepping into my cab, on my way 

to the Princess M s, when the valet-de- 

chambre of Madame la Comtesse came up 
with her note. I immediately turned the 
horse's head towards the door of Madame 
la Comtesse. Her orders for me are 
supreme. Let all the world wait, rather 
than Madame la Comtesse should be de- 
ranged." 

He suspended the chamois brush that 

2 



18 THE PARISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



was doing duty with, the poudre a Vlmpe- 
ratrice, and bowed elaborately to my beauti- 
ful friend. She smiled, and half nodded as 
she might have done to an intelligent poodle 
which had licked her hand. 

You must find it rather an uninteresting 
profession as a continuance," I ventured to 
remark. 

'^Madame, that depends. Like all pro- 
fessions, it has its ennuis, its deceptions ; but 
it has many compensations. One must take 
a higher view of one's art than to make it a 
mere question of money. What is money ? 
Bah ! It is the mud ! One must have a 
soul of mud to think of money 1 " He 
shrugged his shoulders- — that contemptuous 
shrug, the Frenchman's dernier mot to every 
argument. Besides, I am a bachelor; I 
have no need of it. I pursue my avocation ; 
first, because a man owes it to society to do 
something, and secondly, j9ar cultepour Vesthe^ 
tique. The world is full of idlers ; the world 
goes badly: what must save it is the esthetique. 
It will not let itself be converted by philosophy 



THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



19 



or philanthropy. You must get at its soul 
through its senses. L'esthetique^ mesdames, 
that is the thing ! Xow, who will deny the 
influence that the human hand, full of charm, 
and character, and expression, may exercise 
on the beholder ? What may not this agent 
of power accomplish when wielded by a beau- 
tiful and distinguished woman ? Ergo, mes- 
dames, if I by my art place such an omni- 
potent instrument for good in the keeping of 
a number of femmes distinguees, am I not 
furthering the progress of humanity practi- 
cally more than nine-tenths of the men who 
make noisy speeches and write noisy books 
on le progres et le genre hiimain ? Am I not 
a benefactor of my kind ? I ask it of ces 
dames ! " 

He dropped his pomatum-pot, and looked 
from one to the other of us, challenging a 
denial. 

Mais parfaitement ! " exclaimed Berthe. 
She had listened at first with languid sur- 
prise to the manucure's credo ; but gradually 
her face lighted up with an awakened look of 



20 THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 



interest, or at least of curiosity. I did not 
trust myself to make any comment beyond a 
mumbled ^^sans doute!" lest my risible 
faculties should give way. 

That lie believed in himself, that this 
sesthetic apostle was thoroughly in earnest, 
no one could look at him, and listen to him, 
and doubt. But, indeed, every Frenchman 
is endowed at his birth with the faculty of 
working himself up to beheve in anything 
that he makes his theme; the more para- 
doxical the better ; it only calls on his feu sacre 
for a greater momentum to supplement the 
want of sense and reason in his thesis. 

When the hands were finished, M. Dal- 
monferac, having carefully adjusted his pro- 
fessional implements, and bathed the tips of 
his own fingers in the basin of perfumed 
water, rose to depart, 

I put myself at the feet of Madame la 
Comtesse. I am ever at her disposition. 
She has but to signify her pleasure, and no 
matter at what hour or under what circum- 
stances, I fly before her orders ! " 



THE PAEISIENNE EN DESHABILLE. 21 

And be bowed himself out of the room, 
"It falls well. I dine at Madame de 

K 's; je poserai pour la main ce soir^^^ 

said my friend; and, holding up her hand, 
she surveyed its effect in the nearest mirror. 

It looked so bewitchingly lovely, fresh from 
the experimentalizing of Monsieur- Dalmon- 
ferac, that I could not but admit it to be a 
very convincing argument in favour of his 
aesthetic doctrine. 



22 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



n. 

THE BUSIISIESS OF LIFE. 

M. Grandhomme was holding his levee. The 
Rue de la Paix was lined with carriages wait- 
ing for the fair owners who were waiting on 
M, Grandhomme. It was no trifling matter 
to obtain an audience from M. Grandhomme, 
to be admitted into the sanctum sanctorum 
of the man who, from his atelier, ruled the 
fashion of Europe and America : it was a 
distinction coveted by all, but granted only 
to a few. In the choice of those few the 
despot was controlled by no recognized 
standard of rank or wealth. They were, of 
course, drawn from that intangible and ex- 
clusive Walhalla known as society; but he 
showed no distinct deference to the relative 
degrees of rank within that hierarchy. Like 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



23 



M. Dalmonferac, M. Grrandhomme exacted, 
above all, that his protegees should be distiu' 
guees and sympathetic. Acting on this first 
principle, he behaved with startling audacity 
in the distribution of his favours. An am- 
bassadress would be kept making anti« 
chamber," and allowed to return again and 
again before being admitted to the presence- 
chamber, while the autocrat was deliberately 
devoting the energies of his milliner-mind to 
the decoration of some new beauty from the 
provinces, whom Madame TAmbassadrice 
would hesitate before inviting to her Samedis. 
A millionaire banker's wife would be dis- 
missed with oracular laconism, and handed 
over to one of the subaltern priestesses of the 
Grandhomme temple, while the great man 
himself attended to the case of one of his 
favourites, a lady of moderate income, com- 
paratively speaking, (all M. Grandhomme' s 
votaries were supposed, to be women of for- 
tune,) and expended himself in the combina- 
tion of a succes for her next ball. Like all 
human beings possessed of absolute power, 



24 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



he was apt to exercise it too often at tlie 
bidding of his own caprice. 

It was rather a formidable undertaking to 
make an entree into those crowded rooms 
with the determination to order one plain 
silk dress, and inquire the price beforehand ; 
and I take credit for no small degree of 
moral courage in having performed this feat 
once every winter. J am not clear whether I 
should have ventured quite alone on the 
desperate step; but I was always sure of 
meeting a number of friends, whose habitual 
contempt for expense and utter disregard of 
it in their dealings with the Grandhomme 
establishment, threw a mantle over my shame- 
less economy, and pleaded for my odd com- 
mon sense. 

The first person who caught my eye on 
this particular day was my beautiful friend, 
Berthe. Indeed, I had begged her to look in 
there during the afternoon to keep me in 
countenance; and as the Grandhomme gal- 
leries were a sort of fashionable lounge, 
whercf tout Paris met for " combination 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



25 



and gossip, she made no difficulty of do- 
ing so. 

It's very gentilM of you to have come/' 
I said, making my way up to her, after an- 
swering nods of recognition on either side ; 

and now you must help me to order my 
costume.'' 

Wliat is it to be?" 
" Nothing very showy. I thought of hav- 
ing a violet gros grain." 

Hum," muttered Berthe, looking dubi- 
ously at my hair ; I doubt the wisdom of 
that. You are rather pale to venture on 
violet, cherie. But here comes M. Grand- 
homme, we will consult him." 

Consult M. Grandhomme ! Why, I had 
as soon dreamed of consulting the Grand 
Lama. Scores of women, whose reckless 
extravagance could have laid legitimate claim 
to that honour, had gone on ruining their 
husbands season after season, and never been 
so privileged. But Berthe was in her own 
way as great a power as M. Grandhomme. If 
he was I'homme de la mode, she was la 



26 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



femme a la mode ; each ruled fasliion in a 
separate empire, and treated together on 
equal terms. 

"What nonsense !" I exclaimed, laughing 
at the bare notion of such an absurdity ; 

while all Paris is waiting here to order un- 
limited wonders, is it likely he will lose his 
time with me?" 

" Nous verrons/' replied Berthe, with a 
saucy air of conscious supremacy over all 
Paris there assembled. " Ah ! the Princess 

de M has caught him, I see, and she's 

sure to keep him half an hour. Let us sit 
down and bide our time." 

We sat down. 

" Chere Comtesse, you would be an angel 
of charity to give me a petit conseil about 
my fancy dress for la Marine," said a young 
girl running up to Berthe, and taking her 
hand with pretty beseechingness. " I've 
come four times, and waited the whole after- 
noon each time, and lost my singing-lesson 
twice, in hopes of getting to speak to M. 
Grandhomme ; and he has never even looked 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



27 



at me. Do please, give me an idea ! I ttave 
more confidence in you than any one, except 
M. Grandhomme. Mamma advises me to go 
en Bergere de Watteau ; but I'm afraid Tm 
too tall for that ? 

Berthe was good-nature personified : she 
did not know what jealousy meant, and she 
took a nice womanly pleasure in helping 
other women to look their best. 

Well — perhaps/' she answered reflec- 
tively; "but Tm not sure. Watteau would 
suit your face to perfection ; and as to your 
height, I don't see why a shepherdess should 
invariably be small. Besides, the short petti- 
coat and the hat, and the whole character of 
the costume, are adapted to take from one's 
height. On the other hand, there are sure 
to be flocks of Bergeres. Chere enfant, you 
should have spoken to me of this before— 
quietly, when I could have pondered it over 
a tete reposee. One cannot think out a 
subject seriously in a whirl like this. Come 
to me this evening ; you will find me alone, 
entre chien et loup, and we will put our heads 



28 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



together, and combine sometliing delicious 
and new." 

" Chere madame, que vous etes bonne ! 
and the girl kissed her in a rapture of grati- 
tude. " Then I will tell mamma we may go 
now ; she is so tired waiting here day after 
day, and always being disappointed." 

" Stop ! " cried Berthe, calhng after her ; 

wait a little; Madame de M is going 

to release M. Grandhomme. See, they are 
moving this way ; I shall seize him, and 
make him decide for you on the spot." 

The girl blushing with delight, did as she 
was told, and in a nervous flutter of excite- 
ment stood close to Berthe, watching the 
great man drawing nigh. 

While the Princesse de M was closing 

her conference, many minor ones were going 
on all round us. 

" I don t feel my mind made up about 
it," observed a dashing, handsome, and, as 
she would herself have said, gorgeously- 
dressed person, whose loud voice and nasal 
intonation left no doubt as to her nationaUty. 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



29 



It's not the expense that stops me. Mr. T. 
K. gives me ten thousand dollars a year for 
my clothes, and likes me to be as well 
dressed as any lady in the States. Besides, 
I'm going over to London by and by ; and I 
want the Britishers to think pretty consider- 
able pumpkin of me." 

I reckon, they're sure to/' replied the 
lady addressed. I'd have it if I were you. 
You're safe not to see one like it in London ; 
and I know there's nothing takes there in 
society so much as that style of dress ; and, 
as you say, Mr. T. K. don't mind about the 
expense." 

Mademoiselle ! " called out the first 
speaker ; I want to give an order." 

^'Madame est Anglaise? Americaine ? 
Ah ! bon. Will madame take the trouble to 
pass to the room on the right. She will be 
attended to at once." 

Are there separate estabhshments for 
every nationality?" I inquired of Berthe, 
who, being an habitue, knew the ways of the 
house. 



30 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



For tlie Americans, yes. They pay 
double for most tilings." 
What a shame ! " 

dear, no ; they like it — at least the 
set of which these are specimens. The nice 
one's don t come here. Oh, see there ! 
Madame de E. is ordering something pretty." 

In a group near us, an elderly lady was 
concentrating her whole soul on the discourse 
of a premiere demoiselle, who was holding 
forth in an earnest, declamatory manner on 
some combination " which clearly did not 
approve itself to the elderly lady's judg- 
ment. 

How unfortunate that my daughter-in- 
law cannot return in time to select for her- 
self," she observed with grave anxiety; 
"the world has changed so much since I 
went to balls — twenty years ago — that it is 
very puzzling ; and I don't like the respon- 
sibility of choosing one out of such a multi- 
tude." 

" Let Madame la Marquise be tranquil," 
urged the Frenchwoman, soothingly ; " let 



THE BUSINESS OF LIEE. 



31 



her confide in me. I have studied the com- 
plexion, the tournure, the physiognomy, in 
a word, the whole fa(^on d^etre of Madame 
la Marquise jeune ; ,and I take on myself 
the responsibility of the choice." 

But my daughter-in-law is so difficile. 
If it should not please her ? or if some one 
else should order the same for the same 
evening. Think what a deception ! She 
would never forgive me." 

" I entreat Madame la Marquise to put 
her trust in me. Her daughter-in-law left 
entirely to my imagination the toilet she 
wore on Thursday last at la Gruerre ; and 
if Madame la Marquise reads the ^ Figaro ' 
cautiously" (that she should not read it at 
all, was a flight of absurdity that never 
occurred to the Frenchwoman), she will 
have seen the compte-rendu of that toilet. 
It was the succes of the night, both in beauty 
of execution, and in becomingness." 

On Thursday night ! " repeated the 
elderly lady, brightening up ; ^' why, then 
it must be quite fresh, and she can wear 



32 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



it at the Marine. How glad I am you 
mentioned it." 

De grace, madame ! " exclaimed the 
demoiselle, clasping her hands with an ex- 
pression, half shocked, half amnsed; ^^that 
would, indeed, be a misfortune ! What ! la 

Marquise de C appear twice in the same 

ball dress ! In Paris ! %ine femme elegante 
so much looked up to !" 

" And why not, if the dress is so be- 
coming?" boldly demanded the mother-in- 
law, yet with a vague, uncomfortable sense 
of impropriety. 

The demoiselle shook her head, drew 
near, and lowering her voice to a tone of 
confidence : 

Serieusement, Madame la Marquise, it 
cannot be. line femme qui se respecte ne 
fait pas de ces clioses la. In the provinces 
or in England," with an exhaustive shrug ; 
"but in Paris — impossible ! " 

" Then I wash my hands of it. I can 
make nothing out of it. The world is turned 
topsy-turvy. Women are gone mad. line 



THE BUSINESS OE LIFE. 



33 



femme qui se respecte /" And, tossing np 
her head, the mother-in-law walked off, re- 
peating as she went, Une femme qui se 
respecte! Mais elles sont toutes folles 

Meanwhile, M. Grandhomme, who occa- 
sionally, suiting himself to his company, aped 
the manners of a courtier, having bowed his 
princess to the head of the stairs, came back 
to the gallery ; he had no sooner reap- 
peared, than every head was turned towards 
him in eager expectation, each impatient 
for a sign. But the enchanter moved 
amongst them with averted eye, and an air 
of patronising conceit, that bespoke the man, 
whose chariot was the nucleus of a comet, 
whose train filled whole streets." He bowed 
jauntily on either side, with a chorus of 
supplication ringing in his ears : — 

" Cher M, Grandhomme ! only five mi- 
nutes." 

Cher Monsieur ! Be grdce^ say, may 

I venture on mauve ? " 

This last was from a lovely young 

woman whose beauty had carried off* trium- 

3 



34 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



pliantly some of M. Grandhomme's latest 
eccentricities in fashion. He pulled up, 
bent a scrutinizing gaze upon lier : 
^^At night?" 

"No ; for a visiting costume." 

"It is a risk: but you may try it;" he 
passed on, then suddenly turning back, added, 
his finger uplifted warningly : 

" Mais que le chapeau soit rose ! " 

" Et moi?" entreated another. 

But M. Grandhonime was inexorable. He 
shook out his hands, and hurried past, calling 
out in tones of despair, " Mesdames, mes- 
dames, I am at the feet of each one of you, 
give me but time ; one moment and I am at 
your orders ! " 

Berthe stood up as the Turkish fez in 
which Monsieur Grandhomme was pleased to 
cover his noble head approached. She was 
too good a woman and a gentlewoman to 
" Cher Monsieur Grandhomme " him, or to 
stoop to any of the servile graces with which 
others fawned on his Czarship ; she merely 
said in her gracious, grande dame way. 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



35 



Bon jour. Monsieur Grandhomme. When 
you are ready, I want you for a moment." 

^' I am always ready when Madame la 
Comtesse commands." 

He bowed down till the tassel of his fez 
nearly swept the ground, threw open a door 
of the long gallery, and motioned her to enter. 
She beckoned me and her little protegee in 
first. M. Grandhomme followed, and closed 
the door behind him. We were in Madame 
Grandhomme' s boudoir. It was a superlative 
mark of distinction to be admitted into this 
room. Wonderful stofies were current con- 
cerning the Asiatic splendour of the furniture, 
and the beauty of the works of art that 
adorned it. The effect of the v^hole was 
certainly dazzling. But what struck me most 
was the carpet. It was composed of alternate 
squares of Aubusson and Zibeline, the design 
being an inspiration of Monsieur Grand- 
homme's. 

Before this original chef-d'oeuvre was sent 
home to its author, an exiled Queen, who was 
just then furnishing an hotel in the Champs 



36 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



Elysees, saw it and envied it ; but on hearing 
by whom it had been ordered, and at what a 
price — twenty thousand francs — she observed 
with a smile, " Ah, I might have known that 
such a costly folly could only be for a reigning 
Sovereign." 

In this boudoir, her feet nestling in the 
silky fur, or pressing the delicate tapestry, 
her person attired in M. Gisandhomme's 
latest " combination," Madame Grandhomme 
delighted to foser before the envied few 
who were admitted within the enchanted 
ring. • 

To-day she posed as Marie Antoinette au 
Temple, and anything more insolently 
picturesque than the pos6, from beginning to 
end, it would be difficult to conceive. 

Her luxuriant fair hair was caught up 
under the white coiffe worn by the Queen in 
prison ; a kerchief of simple white cambric 
was crossed upon her breast and relieved the 
severity of the long black gown, that fell in 
soft pathetic folds round her slight, well- 
moulded figure. 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



37 



There was something to me shocking 
at the first glance in the mockery of majesty 
and martyrdom posing in this magnificent 
theatrical framework ; but apparently I was 
the only spectator who took this view of it. 
Berthe and her little fiiend expressed nothing 
but surprise and •admiration. 

What a success ! How perfectly it suits 
you ! The very type ! One sees Marie 
Antoinette before one ! " 

" Yes, " said Madame Grandhomme, 
smiling, while she rose to receive us, af- 
fecting a slow melodramatic movement in 
harmony with the tragic figure she per- 
sonified, they tell me the character of my 
head and features recall well those of the 
unhappy Queen." 

There were already three ladies in the 
consultation-room, but we were so startled 
by the vision of Marie Antoinette that we 
did not at first notice them. One was blonde, 
still young, but fatally overtaken by an em- 
bonpoint that robbed her of the appearance 
of youth ; the second was blonde also, with 



38 



THE BUSINESS OF LTEE. 



large brown eyes and a tall slight figure ; 
the third was dark — a dangerous gazelle- 
looking creature. The three had spent their 
morning here, combining for the approaching 
ball at the Marine. Berthe knew them all ; 
I only knew the gazelle. We began chat- 
tering together, when Monsieur Grandhomme 
broke in with an abrupt, '^Voyons, mes- 
dames ! To business. We are not here to 
amuse ourselves." 

I want you to give an idea to made- 
moiselle for a fancy dress," began Berthe, 
laying a hand on the young girl's arm in a 
motherly way that she affected with women 
younger than herself. What do you say to 
a pink Bergere ?" 

^' Permettez, mademoiselle." 

Monsieur Grandhomme drew her towards, 
the window, set her standing before him 
with the light full upon her face, looked 
at her intently for a moment, and shook his 
head. 

''jN'o?" said Berthe, inquiringly, she's 
too tall ?" 



THE BTTSIIS^ESS OF LIFE. 



39 



Too tall and too pale. But we must 
see her by night." 

He crossed the room, and opened a door 
into one that was brilliantly illuminated with 
waxlights. We all trooped in after him, all 
except Marie Antoinette who retained her 
"pose in the Louis XV. fauteuil. 

Pauvre enfant ! What a perfidious 
counsel it was to suggest pink to her !" he 
said, looking rather reproachfully at Berthe. 
Leb us see how you bear deep rose." 
He stretched out his hand, and, with the 
rapidity of magic, a satellite, whose talent, 
only second to that of the great luminary 
round which she revolved, had promoted her 
to the high post of assisting Monsieur Grand- 
homme in his aesthetic combinations, flew 
towards us with a cloud of tulle of every 
shade of rose, pink, and crimson in the gamut 
of carmine. He flung a rose-coloured scarf 
round the girl's shoulders, held it close to her 
cheek, cast it aside, snatched up a crimson 
one, applied it in the same way, and threw 
that from him. He called for a blue gamut. 



40 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



It was brouglit, tested, and rejected im- 
patiently. 

A very difficult subject, I see," observed 
Monsieur Grandhomme, drawing his hand 
across his forehead, and looking down in- 
tently at his boots. Presently glancing up at 
her, he said, 

" Did you ever appear as a naiade ?" 
Never, monsieur. I should be afraid of 
the green." 

There is green and green ; your pal- 
lor would suit certain attenuated shades 
of it. But no ; this is your first fancy cos- 
tume ?" 

"Yes, monsieur." 

" Then we must run no risks. I shall 
order you white — all white. You shall appear 
as a snow-storm. Write : — skirt^ white satin, 
sJwrt; bouillonnes tulle en profusion; flots 
de tulle par dessus les bouillons ; flocons de 
duvet de cygnepleuvant sur les flots. Souliers: 
cygne ; perce -neige noyes dans le duvet. 
Coiffure: cheveux en tourbillon, perce-neige 
piqiie qa et la; glaqons de cristal clair-semes 



THE BUSINESS OF LIFE. 



41 



de la tete mix pieds. Nuage de tulle jete 
siir le tout.^^ 

Qitel reve /" burst from the breathless 
girl, as she clasped her hands in ecstacy, and 
looked at Berthe. 

^'Et maintenant, madame ?" said Mon- 
sieur Grandhomme, turning to me with the 
peremptory manner of a man who knew the 
value of his time. 

I shall spare my readers the platitude of 
my own costume. It may, however, interest 
them to know that violet was discarded as 
too great a risk for my complexion, and for 
my hair, which, according to M. Grand- 
homme, had not sufficient tone to relieve it. 
I confess the whole scene amused and inte- 
rested me more than, as a reasonable being, 
it ought to have done. But there was some- 
thing irresistibly contagious in the man's 
earnestness. He imbued you, for the time 
being, with his own strong individuality, 
wi£h his thorough belief in combinations, 
his intense respect for dress as an institu- 
tion. He literally wore himself out com- 



42 



THE BUSINESS OF LIEE. 



billing. He travelled once a-year to out- 
of-tlie-way Italian and Spanish towns with 
a view to evolving combinations, studying 
assiduously the models of colour, form, and 
drapery in the old Masters. He dreamed 
over costumes. He would constantly start 
up out of his sleep in the dead of the 
night, and seize the sketching appliances 
always left at his bedside, that he might 
catch the passing inspiration of the dream 
and fix it on paper before it evaporated. 
He lifted dress to the position of a fine 
art in France, and in a few years did more 
towards subverting the standard that once 
prevailed there, and which made the sim- 
plicity and elegance of a Frenchwoman's 
dress the model of cultivated taste all over 
the world, than half a century of dressmakers 
did before him. 

" Au revoir, cherie," said Berthe, as we 
parted at Monsieur Grandhomme's door. I 
shall be at Madame Folibel's to-morrow be- 
tween three and four. Try and look in, and 
help me about bonnets." 



EXTREMES MEET. 



43 



III 

EXTREMES MEET. 

Mesdames Folibel occupied a double set 
of rooms, an premier^ on the Boulevards 
des Italiens. On a door to tlie right a large 
brass plate announced that Madame Augus- 
tine Folibel presided over lingerie et den- 
telles^ and invited the public to 'Hurn the 
button." To the left, a large steel plate 
proclaimed Madame Alexandrine Folibel, 
modiste, and invited the public to ring the 
bell." But after a certain hour every daj, 
both these invitations were negatived by a ^ 
page in buttons, who, stationed at either 
door, kept the way open for the ceaseless 
flow of visitors passing in and out of the 
two establishments. 

My friend, Berthe de Bonton, was just 



44 



EXTEEMES MEET. 



turning into the lingerie department, wlien I 
came up the stairs. 

How lucky!" she exclaimed, running 
across the landing to me, and then in a sotto 
voce^ Madame Clifford" (pronounced Clee- 
fore) is here, and wants me to choose a 
bonnet for her. Now, if there's a thing I 
hate, it's choosing a bonnet for an English- 
woman. To begin with, they haven't the 
first rudiments of culture in dress, then they 
can never make up their minds, and they 
find everything too dear ; but the crowning 
absurdity is, that they bring their husbands 
with them, and consult them ! Figurez-vous, 
ma chere ! " and Berthe, with a French- 
woman's keen sense of the comic, laughed 
mxcrrily at the conceit ; I laughed with her, 
though not perhaps quite from the same 
point of view ; I made an excuse to get away 
for a few minutes, and left the menage discus- 
sing a pink tulle, with marabout and beetle- 
wings trimming ; un petit poeme, cherie ; 
but — " she seized me by the arm, fancy 
Madame Cleefore's complexion under it ! " 



EXTREMES MEET. 



45 



Ah, bon jour, mesdames ! I am at the 
orders of ces dames. Will they take the 
trouble to seat themselves just for one 
second !" entreated Madame Augustine, who 
greeted us in the first salon, where she was 
carrying on a warm debate on the merits 
of Alenyon versus Valenciennes, as a trim- 
ming for a bridal peignoir. 

''I only want to say a word with 
reference to my order of yesterday; where 
is Mademoiselle Florine ? " inquired Berthe, 
looking round the room where there Y,^ere 
several groups ordering pretty things. 

Florine ! Florine ! " called out Madame 
Augustine. 

" Voici, madam e ! " 

Mademoiselle Florine was a plump little 
boulotte of a woman, who wore her nose 
retrousse, and always looked at you as if 
she had reason to complain of you. With- 
out being the least uncivil she looked it ; her 
nose was uncivil : it had a supercilious 
expression that made you feel it was con- 
sidering you de haut en has. The fact is, 



46 



EXTEEMES MEET. 



Mademoiselle Florine was not happy — she 
was disappointed ; not in love, bat with life 
in general, and with lingerie in particular. 
She had adopted lingerie as a vocation, and 
it was going down in the world ; it was 
degenerating into pacotille ; grandes dames 
were beginning to grow cold about it, and 
to wear collars and cuffs that a petite hour- 
geoise would have turned up her nose at ten 
years ago. More grievous still was the 
change that had come over petticoats. The 
deterioration • in this line she took terribly 
to heart, and the surest way to enlist her 
good graces and secure her interest in your 
order, be it ever so small, was to preface 
it with a sigh or a sneer at red Balmorals 
or other gaudy and economical inventions 
which had dethroned the snowy jupon hlanc 
of her youth, with its tucks, and frills, and 
dainty edgings of lace or embroidery. 

Berthe, it so happened, shared very 
strongly this dislike to coloured petticoats, 
and was guilty of considerable extravagance 
in the choice of white ones ; Mademoiselle 



EXTREMES MEET. 



47 



riorine's sympathies consequently went out 
to her, and no matter how busily she was 
engaged, or with whom, she would fly to 
Berthe as to a kindred soul the moment she 
appeared. 

" I have been thinking over those jupons 
a traine, that I ordered yesterday," said 
Berthe, to the pugnacious-looking little 
linger " and I have an idea that the entre- 
deux anglais will be a failure. We ought 
to have decided on Valenciennes." 

^^Ah! I thought Madame, la Comtesse 
would come round to it!" observed Made- 
moiselle Florine^ with a smile of supreme 
satisfaction; I told Madame la Comtesse 
it was a mistake." 

Yes, I felt you did not approve ; but 
really twelve hundred francs for six petti- 
coats did seem a great deal," observed 
Berthe, deprecatingly; ^'now, suppose we put, 
alternately, one row of deep entre-deux and 
a tuyaute of batiste, edged with a narrow 
Valenciennes, instead of all Valenciennes ? " 

" Voyons, reflechissons ! " said Made- 



48 



EXTREMES MEET. 



moiselle Florine, putting her finger to her 
lips, and knitting her brow. 

It occurred to me in my bed last 
night/' continued Berthe ; " and I fell asleep 
and actually dreamed of it, and you can't 
think how pretty it looked, so light, and, 
at the same time, so furnished." 

A la bonne heure ! Parlez-moi d'une 
pratique comme cela!" exclaimed Made- 
moiselle Florine, clasping her hands, and 
turning to me with a look of admiration, 
which was almost affecting from its earnest- 
ness ; " there is some compensation in work- 
ing for madame, at least. If ces dames 
knew what I have to endure from nine- 
tenths of the people I work for ! " and she 
threw up her hands and shook her head in 
the direction of the premier salon. " But 
let me get out the models, and see how 
this dream of Madame la Comtesse's looks 
in reality." 

Boxes of lace and embroidery were 
ordered out by the excited lingere^ and under 
her deft and nimble fingers, the dream was 



EXTREMES MEET. 



49 



illustrated in tlie course of a few minutes. 
Berthe was undecided. She sat down and 
surveyed the combination in silent perplexity. 

Vraiment cette question de jupons 
complique trop la vie ! " she sighed, pre- 
sently ; and now I begin to ask myself if 
these will go with any of my new dresses ? 
The crinoline eventail is going out. Monsieur 
Grandhomme told me, and they will never 
go with the queue de moimau that he is 
bringing in ? " 

Here was a predicament ! 
"Attendez," said Florine, dropping a 
dozen rouleaux of lace on the floor, as if 
such costly cliiffons^ the mere mortar and 
clay of l|pr airy architecture, were not worth 
a thought; "laissons la question de jupons 
pendante ; I will go myself this evening and 
discuss the toilettes of Madame la Comtesse 
with her femme de chambre ; we will see the 
style and fall of the new skirts and adapt the 
jupon to them." 

Que vous etes bonne ! " exclaimed 
Berthe, looking and feeling grateful for 

4 



50 



EXTREMES MEET. 



this unlooked-for solution of her diffi- 
culty. 

" It is a consolation to me^ Madame la 
Comtesse," replied Mademoiselle Florine^ 
with a sigh, *^and I need a little now and 
then!" 

We wished her good morning. 
Let us go back now to Alexandrine/' 
said Berthe. " I hope Mrs. Clifford has made 
up her mind by this time." 

But the hope was vain. Mrs. Clifford 
was standing with her back to the long mir- 
ror looking at herself as reflected in a hand- 
glass that she turned so as to view her head 
in every possible aspect, while Mr. Clifford 
looked on. ^ 

*'^Do you think it does?" she inquired, 
as we came up to her. 

" I think a darker shade would suit you 
better/' I said, that pale pink has no mercy 
on one's complexion." 

I've tried on nearly every bonnet on the 
table," she said, looking very miserable, ^^and 
they don't any of them seem to do." 



EXTREMES MEET. 



51 



Madame will not understand tliat tlie 
first condition of a bonnet's suiting, after 
the complexion of course, is that tlie hair 
should be dressed with regard to it/' inter- 
posed Madame Alexandrine, who, I could 
see by her flushed face and nervous manner, 
was, as she would say herself, d bout cle 
patience ; these bonnets are all made for 
the coiffure a la mode, whereas Madame 
wears un peigne a galerie. Mon Dieu ! mais 
il y a six mois que le peigne a galerie ne se 
porte plus 

I suggested a Vappui of this undeniable 
argument, that the comb should be sup- 
pressed. 

" Oh, dear no, I wouldn't give it up for 
the world!" said Mrs. Clifford, with the 
emphatic manner she might have used if I 
had proposed her giving up her spectacles. 

^'Then you must have one made to order." 

'^Yes," said Madame Alexandrine, ^'I will 
make one for m^adame aftfer a special model." 

" But then it will be dowdy and old 
fashioned !" demurred the Englishwoman. 



52 



EXTREMES MEET. 



Then let madame sacrifice le peigne a 
galerie ! What sacrifice is it after all ? 
IS^obody wears them now; it belongs to the 
past/' argued Madame Alexandrine, appeal- 
ing to me. 

" This one was a present from my hus- 
band/' replied Mrs. Clifford, in a tone that 
seemed to say, You understand, there is 
nothing more to be said." 

I did not dare look at Berthe. Luckily 
she was beside me so I could not see her 
face, but I saw the muff go up in a very ex- 
pressive way, and suddenly she disappeared 
into a little salon to the left set apart for 
caps and coiffures cle hal ; I heard a 
smothered burst," and a treacherous ar- 
moire a glace revealed her thrown back in an 
arm-chair, stuflSng her handkerchief into her 
mouth and convulsed with laughter. Madame 
Fohbel, whose risible faculties long and hard 
training had brought under perfect control, 
received the communication however with 
unruffled equanimity. 

That explains why madame holds to 



EXTREMES MEET. 



53 



it," she answered, very seriously; it is 
natural and toucliing. Still, one must be 
reasonable ; one must not sacrifice too much 
to a sentiment. Monsieur would, not wish 
it," turning to the gentleman, who stood 
with his back to the fire-place listening in 
solemn silence to the controversy. 

Monsieur understands that the chief 
point in madame's toilette is her bonnet. I 
grieve to say English ladies themselves do 
not suflBciently realize the supremacy of the 
bonnet ; yet a moment's reflection ought to 
show them how all-important it is, how 
necessary that every other feature in the dress 
should succumb to it. The complexion, the 
hair, the shape of the head, are all at the 
mercy of the bonnet. Of what avail is a 
handsome dress, and fashionable shawl or 
mantle, costly fur, lace, an irreproachable 
tout ensemble in fine, if the bonnet be 
unbecoming ? All these are but the rez-de- 
chaussee and the entresol, so to speak, while 
the bonnet is le couronnement de F edifice. 
Le chajjeau enfin c^est la femme 



54 



EXTEEMES MEET. 



At this climax Madame Folibel paused. 
Mr. Clifford, who had listened as grave as a 
judge, his hands in his pockets, not a muscle 
of his face moving, while the modiste, look- 
ing straight at him, delivered herself of her 
credo, now turned to me. 

Unquestionably," he said, in a serious 
and impressive tone, there must be a 
place in heaven for these people : they "are 
thoroughly in earnest." 

Mrs. Clifford took advantage of the aparte 
between her husband and myself to follow 
up Madame Folibers oration by a few 
private remarks. 

Clearly she was staggered in her fidelity 
to the ^'sentiment" which interfered so 
alarmingly with the success of the couron- 
nement de V edifice ; but she had not the 
honesty to confess it outright. She was 
ashamed of giving in. Without being often 
one whit less devoted to the vanities of life, 
an Englishwoman is held back by this kind 
of mauvaise honte from proclaiming her 
allegiance to them. She is ashamed of 



EXTEEMES MEET. 



55 



being in earnest about folly. Now this 
British idiosyncrasy is quite foreign to a 
Frenchwoman ; even when she is personally, 
either from character or circumstances, in- 
different to the great fact of dress, she is 
always alive to its importance in the abstract, 
and will discuss it without any assumption 
of contemning wisdom, but soberly and intel- 
ligently as befits a grave subject of recognized 
importance to her sisterhood in the carrying 
on of life. 

"What do you advise me to do, dear?^' 
said Mrs. Clifi*ord, appealing to her husband, 
the wife and the woman warring vexedly in 
her spirit. 

" Give in," said Mr. Clifford. "What in 
the name of mercy could you do else ? A 
dozen men in your place would have capitu- 
lated after that broadside ending in the 
woman and the bonnet." • 

"What does monsieur say?" inquired 
Madame Folibel. 

Monsieur had answered his wife with his 
eyes fixed on the Frenchwoman, as if she 



56 



EXTREMES MEET. 



were a wild variety of tlie species that tie 
had never come upon before, and might not 
have an opportunity of studying again. 

^^I suppose I must sacrifice the comb/' 
observed Mrs, Chfibrd, affecting a sort of 
bored indifference, and looking about for her 
old bonnet, so we will leave the choice of 
the model open till I have had a consulta- 
tion with Macradock, my maid, "and see 
what she can do with my hair ; she is very 
clever at hair-dressing." 

" Oh, de grace, madame!" exclaimed la 
Folibe], terrified at the rough Scotch name 
that boded ill for the couronnement ; ''your 
maid instead of mending matters will only 
complicate them still more. You must put 
yourself in the hands of a coiffeur who 
understands physiognomy, and who will 
study yours before he decides upon the 
necessary change. If madame does not 
know such a man I can recommend her 
mine, a coiffeur-artiste in whom I have 
unlimited trust. I send him numbers of 
my customers, he never fails to please them, 



EXTREMES MEET. 



57 



and* I cau trust him not to compromise me. 
Madame understands, the success of my 
bonnets depends in no small degree on the 
way in which the head is adjusted for them. 
11 y a des tetes impossibles that I could not 
commit my reputation to. I am sometimes 
obliged to make a bonnet for them, but I 
never sign it ; I have my name removed 
from the lining, and so edit the thiug 
anonymously. It would compromise me 
irremediably if my signature were seen on 
some of your countrywomen's heads." 

Mrs. Clifford, awakened to the responsi- 
bility she was about to incur, promised to 
consult the artist instead of her Scotch maid, 
whereupon Madame Folibel handed her a 
large card which bore the name Monsieur de 
Rysterveld, and his address. Under both 
was a note setting forth his capillary capa- 
bilities, and informing the public that : — 

Monsieur de Rysterveld tient a prouver 
qu'il est possible de rester gentilhomme tout 
en devenant coiffeur."* 

* A Fact. 



68 



EXTREMES MEET. 



The modiste then assisted Mrs. Clifford 
to tie on her own bonnet^ observing while she 
smoothed out the ribbon carefully, as if try- 
ing to make the best of a bad case, 

" I am glad that madame has consented 
to give up that peigne a galerie, it really is 
an injustice to her head, and it is simply out 
of the question her having a proper bonnet 
while that impediment exists. Madame will 
be quite another person," she continued, 
addressing Mr. Clifford ; " monsieur will not 
recognize her with a new chignon, and in a 
bonnet of mine." 

^'Oh, then I protest," said Mr. Clifford, 
drily ; he understood French, but did not 
speak it : ''1 protest against both the chignon 
and the bonnet, madame.'' 

" Plait-il, monsieur ? " said Madame 
Folibel, looking from one to the other of us. 

" Dear Walter ! She means I shall be 
so much improved," explained his wife, 
laughing. 

Improved ! " repeated Mr. Clifford, not 
hfting his eye-brows, but writing increduUt/j 



EXTREMES MEET. 



59 



on every line of his face. His wife blushed, 
and her eyes rested in his for a moment. 
Then turning quickly to Madame Folibel she 
made some final arrangement about a meeting 
for the following day. 

Just at this juncture Berthe came back. 
I was glad she was not there in time to catch 
the absurd little passage between the two. 
A husband paying a compliment to his wife, 
and she blushing under it after ten years' 
menage, would have been a delicious morsel 
of the ridicule anglais that Berthe could not 
have withstood ; it would have diverted her 
salon for a week. 

Well ? " she said, five notes of interroga- 
tion plainly adding : Are you ever going to 
have done ? " 

It is decided/' ansl\rered Madame Foli- 
bel, coming forward with an air of triumph ; 
madame sacrifices the comb ! " 
" A la bonne heure ! " exclaimed Berthe ; 
^'I congratulate you, chere madame. Even 
au moral, you will be the better for it. 
For my part I know no jpetite misere 



60 



EXTEEMES MEET. 



more demoralizing tlian an unbecoming 
bonnet." 

We all went downstairs together ; but 
at the street-door we parted from the 
Cliffords. 

"Where are you going now?" asked 
Berthe. 

" To the reunion at the Rue de Mon- 
ceauj" I said ; " I got the fairepart last night, 
and I want particularly to be there to try 
and get a child into the Succursale school. 
There is only one vacancy and six are trying 
for it, so I fear my little protegee has small 
chance of success. Come and give me your 
vote, Berthe." 

" Cherie, I would with pleasure f but I 
am so dreadfully busy this afternoon. I pro- 
mised the Princess ' M— — to look in during 
the rehearsal chez elle, and then I've not been 

to Madame B 's Thursdays for an age, and 

I almost swore I'd go to-day." 

" Well, what's to prevent your going after- 
wards?" I said; "it's not yet four, and the 
reunion does not last more than an hour. 



EXTREMES MEET. 



61 



Monsieur le Cure arrives at a quarter past four 
and leaves at five." 

" But one is bored to death waiting for 
him," argued Bertlie, and the room is so 
hot, at the good sisters' ; and there won't 
be a cat there to-day, I'm sure ; everybody is 
at the skating." 

" Oh ! the parish and the skating don't 
interfere with each other," I said, laughing ; 

but I see you can't come; so, good-bye, I 
must be off. Mademoiselle de Galliac will 
be waiting for me." 

Comment ! Is la petite to be there ? 
I particularly want to see her. I want to 
know how her snowstorm costume went off 
at the Marine, for in the crowd I never caught 
sight of her. Chere amie, I'll go with you to 
Monceau. After all," she continued, drawing 
a long sigh, as we stepped into her carriage, 
this life will not last for ever ; il faut songer 
de temps en temps a la pauvre soul." 

We were a little behind our time for the 
canvassing. Four of my rivals were before 
me in the field, and had robbed me of a few 



62 



EXTREMES MEET. 



votes that I might have secured by being there 
a quarter of an hour sooner. 

Now, Berthe/' I said, it's your fault ; 
so you must bestir yourself to help me. At- 
tack those young girls in the window and 
persuade them to vote for my child." 

"Who are they?" 

" I don't know ; go and ask them." 

Berthe charged valiantly at the group 
in the window, introducing herself by em- 
bracing the young girls all rounds and declar- 
ing her perfect confidence in their support. 
They gathered round her, fascinated at once 
by her beauty and her frank, attractive 
manner. I saw at a glance that the votes 
were safe, and that I had no need to bring up 
reinforcements in that quarter ; so I set to 
work elsewhere.. 

Perhaps it would interest my readers to 
hear something of the bonne oeuvre itself. 
Its object is to take charge, of orphans of the 
poorest class, clothe, feed, and educate them 
till the age of twenty-one. The members are 
exclusively ladies, married or single. To be 



EXTREMES MEET. 



63 



a member it is necessary to be a parishioner, 
to pay a small sum yearly for the mainte- 
nance of the confraternity, and to assist at 
the monthly meetings, where the wants, 
plans, and progress of the work are discussed 
in presence of the Cure, who is always presi- 
dent, and another parish clergyman elected 
directeiLT, the rest of the board — treasurer, 
secretary, and vice-president — being chosen 
amongst the members. When an orphan is 
proposed for admission, a written statement, 
giving her birth, parentage, and circum- 
stances, and setting forth the special claims 
of the case, is placed on the green table of 
the assembly-room, at which the dignitaries 
preside during the meeting. This prelimi- 
nary fulfilled, the next step is to secure the 
votes of the confraternity. The demand be- 
ing always much greater than the supply, 
when a vacancy occurs it is sure to be sharply 
contested. A zealous patroness takes care to 
canvass beforehand ; but, from one circum- 
stance or another, there are always a good 
many votes still to be disposed of on the day 



64 



EXTREMES MEET. 



of the election, and the half-hour that elapses 
from the opening of the assembly to the 
arrival of the Cure is spent in fighting for 
them, and presents a scene of interesting 
excitement. The patroness is looked upon as 
the mother of the little petitioner, who, once 
admitted into the orphanage, is called her 
child." Those who are long members, and 
very zealous, succeed in getting in many 
orphans, and thus become mothers of a 
numerous family. The most devoted of these 
mothers are generally the very young girls. 
The way in which some of their young hearts 
go out to their adopted children is touching 
and beautiful beyond description. They 
seem to anticipate the joys and cares, and to 
invest themselves with something of the very 
dignity of motherhood in their relations with 
the little outcasts, who look to them for help 
in a world where, but for them, they would 
apparently have no right to be, where no one 
cares for them, no one loves them, except 
the great Father who suffers the little ones 
to come to Him, and will not have them for- 



EXTREMES MEET. 



C5 



bidden. Every montli tlie soeiirs send in a 
special bulletin of the conduct and health of 
each child, addressed to the adopted mother, 
and read by M. le Cure at the meeting. Ac- 
cording to the contents of the bulletin the 
mothers are congratulated, or the reverse. 
Little presents are sent to the good children, 
and letters of reproval written to the naughty 
ones. In this way the maternal character is 
kept up till the children leave the shelter of 
their convent home. Then the mothers 
assist in placing them as servants or a^ppren- 
tices, or, better still, in getting them respect- 
ably married. 

While Berthe was gathering up votes for 
me on her side, I was busy on my own, and 
when the bell rang, announcing, as we 
thought, M. le Cure, I had a pretty good 
poll. 

The buzz of talk subsided suddenly, the 
high functionaries broke away from the com- 
mon herd, and took their places at the green 
table, near the fauteuilsy awaiting the Cure 
and the Vicaire. Some of the very young 

5 



66 



EXTEEMES MEET. 



motliers looked eager and flurried. One in 
particular, wlio was a rival candidate with 
me, seemed terribly nervous. She was about 
seventeen. Two juvenile mothers on either 
side of her were speaking words of en- 
couragement, and trying to keep up her 
hopes. 

" Tu as bien prie pour que je reussisse ? " 
I heard her say to one of them ; " the poor 
old grandfather will break his heart if Yir- 
ginie is refused. He can't take her into les 
Vieilliards — even if it weren't against the 
rules— because he hasn't a crust of bread to 
give her. He has nothing but what the 
soeurs give him for himself. Oh ! do pray 
hard that I may succeed ! " 

" Let us say another Pater and Ave before 
M. le Cure comes in/' suggested her com- 
panions ; and the three friends lowered their 
voices and sent up their pure young hearts 
together in a last appeal to the Father of the 
fatherless in behalf of the little orphan. 

The door opened. It was not M. le 
Cure. 



EXTEE:\rES MEET. 



67 



All ! bon jourj clier auge ! " exclaimed 
Madame de Nerac, embracing Bertlie -witli 
effusioD, and talking as loud as if she were 
'^receiving'' in her own salon. ''What a 
charming surprise to meet you ! I came to 
vote for Marguerite's protegee^ and see hoYf 
my devouement is crowned ! " 

I expressed my satisfaction at virtue's 
proving in this case its own reward. 

But why have I not seen you before ? '* 
inquired Berthe. ''I did not even know you 
were in town." 

''I hardly know it yet myself/' replied 
Madame de Nerac ; I only arrived last 
night. Marguerite wrote to me imploring 
me to be here if I could in time to vote for 
her. Chere amie/' she continued, turning 
to me, till you reminded me of it I actually 
forgot I was member at all.'' 

''Well, now that you are in town, you 
mean to stay ? " said Berthe. 

" Helas ! I only remain a week." 

" But you said you meant fco spend the 
Carnival here ? " 



68 



EXTREMES MEET. 



When I said so I believed it." 
And what has changed your plans ? I 
inquired. 

Madame . de Kerac shrugged her 
shoulders. 

Men mari a Tindelicatesse de me dire 
qu il n'a pas d' argent ! One can't stay in 
Paris without money.'' 

Quel homme ! " exclaimed Berthe, with 
a look of pity and disgust. 

The door opened again. This time it was 
the Cure. 

After the usual blessing and prayer he 
declared the seance opened, and read the 
reports of the board and the bulletins. These 
matters disposed of, the business of the 
election began at once. A brisk cross-exa- 
mination soon put four candidates hors de 
concours. Two had fathers w^ho could support 
them, but would not. The confraternity found 
the children not qualified for its charge. Two 
others were not parishioners of St. Philippe 
du Roule. Of the six who had started, two, 
therefore, onlv remained on the field. One 



EXTREMES MEET. 



69 



was mine, the other was the protegee of the 
young girl whose conyersation I had just 
overheard. We were to divide the votes 
between us. Our respective orphans had 
the necessary quahfications ; it only remained 
to see which of the two, as the more desti- 
tute, could establish the primary claim on the 
protection of the confraternity. Mine was 
ten years of age. She had two tiny brothers, 
and a sister some five years older than her- 
self, who, since the death of their mother, 
six months ago, had supported the whole 
family by working as a hlanchisseuse de fin by 
day, and as a lingere half the night. But- the 
bread-winner gave way under the load of 
work, and now lay sick at the hospital, while 
the brothers and the sister, clinging to each 
other in a fireless garret, cried out for bread 
to the rich brethren who could not hear them« 
The Cure de Sainte-Clothilde had promised 
to find shelter for the boys ; but what was 
to be done with the girl ? I had stated these 
plain facts in the petition, and now verbally 
recommended the case to the compassion of 



70 



EXTREMES MEET. 



the members^ and once again asked for their 
votes. 

My rival's child was twelve years of age. 
She had no brothers or sisters. She was 
utterly destitute, but in good health, and 
nearly of an age to support herself M. le 
Cure listened to the two cases, and when he 
had heard both, his judgment seemed strongly 
impressed in favour of mine. 

In spite of the interest I felb in my poor 
little protegee^ I could not help regretting 
the impending failure of my young competitor 
opposite. She had answered the Cure's 
questions in short nervous monosyllables, 
and now sat drinking in every word he said, 
two fever spots burning on her cheek, while 
her eyes swam with tears that all her efforts 
failed to swallow. 

To the vote, mesdames said the Cure ; 
I fear Mademoiselle Helene, you have a bad 
chance." 

'^Oh, Monsieur le Cure!" burst from 
Helene ; her poor old grandfather will die 
of disappointment !" 



EXTREMES MEET. 



71 



^^My poor child, I liope not," said the 
Cure, evidently touched by her distress, but 
unable to repress a smile at this extreme 
horoscopic view ; your protegee^ s having a 
grandfather is indeed an advantage on the 
wrong side." 

" He's blind, Monsieur le Cure ! and 
paralysed ! and eighty-six years old T' urged 
Helene, gaining courage from desperation ; 
and his one prayer is to see the petite safe, 
» somewhere, before he dies. Oh, Monsieur le 
Cure!" .... She stopped, the big tears 
rolling down her cheeks. 

" Voyons !" said the good old pastor, 
rubbing his nose and fidgeting at his spec- 
tacles ; let us take the vote and then we 
shall see. You have a child already, have 
you not, mademoiselle ?" 

Yes, Monsieur le Cure, I have two, 
but one is in the country, at the Succur- 
sale." 

The votes were taken, and by a very small 
majority I carried it. My voters congratulated 
me, while Helene' s friends crowded round her^ 



72 



EXTREMES MEET. 



condoliDg. But the poor child would not be 
comforted ; overcome by tlie previous emo- 
tion, and the final disappointment^ she sobbed 
as if her heart would break. 

" Oh, really it's too cruel to let that dear 
child be disappointed/' said Berthe; can't 
we do something. Monsieur le Cure ? Can't 
we, by any possibility, squeeze in another 
child ?" 

]S"o thing easier, madame : you have only 
to create a new bourse, or get subscribers to 
the amount of three hundred francs a-year for 
the term of the child's education," replied 
Monsieur le Cure. 

Then I subscribe for two years down," 
said Berthe, impulsively. ^'Who follows 
suit?" 

'^I do," said another speaker; "I will 
subscribe for one year !" 

" And I will give forty francs," said a 
third. 

And I a hundred," said the Cure, who 
was always to the fore when a good work was 
to be helped on. 



EXTREMES MEET. 



73 



In a few minutes the green table glistened 
with. Qfold Dieces and notes. It was all done 
so quickly that Helene had not had time to 
ask what it was all about, when Berthe ran 
up to her with the good news that her child 
was taken in. 

How good you are, madame !" said the 
young girl; ''but I knew you were good; 
you have the face of an angel !" 

" It is better to have the heart of one," 
said Berthe, laughing, and hastily rubbing a 
dewdrop from her own fair face. 

'' Now I must make haste away, 
or I shall be late for my lesson," said 
Helene. 

What lesson are you going to take, ma 
petite ?" inquired Berthe, affectionately. 

'' I am going to give one, madame," 
replied Helene ; ''I live by giving music 
lessons." 

''Then you must come and give me 
some," said Berthe. " Here is my address. 
Come to me to-morrow as early as you 
can!" 



74 



EXTREMES MEET. 



Yoli are not sorry I made you come, are 
5^011 5 Bertlie ?" I asked, as we went out 
together. 

Sorry ! I would not have missed it for 
tlie world," 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



75 



WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 

" Au revoir, a demain ! " said Bertlie, kissing 
a fair-haired young girl, and conducting her 
to the door. 

" What a sweet face ! Whose is it ? " in- 
quired Madame de Beaucoeur. 

^^Helene de Karodel's. Her character is 
sweeter still than her face/' said Berthe. 
^^I have fallen quite in love with her." And 
she related the story of their meeting at the 
reunion de Monceau, and the acquaintance 
which had followed. 

"It is a fine old Breton name, and used 
to be a wealthy one. How comes she to be 
earning her bread, poor child ? " 

" The old story," said Berthe ; " General 
de Karodel mismanaged his property, took 
to speculating by way of mending matters. 



76 



WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



and, of course, lost every thing. Then he 
died, leaving a widow and three children to 
do the best they could with his debts and his 
pension — some forty pounds a year. Helene 
is the eldest, and what she earns pays for the 
education of the second sister." 

"But the rest of the family are well off. 
Why don't they do something for them ? " 

"Rich relations are not given much, as a 
rule, to helping poor ones," replied Berthe. 
" Besides, these de Karodels are as proud as 
Lucifer; and benefits are pills that a proud 
spirit finds it diflBcult to swallow ; it takes a 
good deal of love to gild them." 

"Very true." And dismissing Helene de 
Karodel with a sigh, Madame de Beaucoeur 
resumed : " Chere amie, I am come to ask 
you to do me a service." 

Her presence, indeed, at so early an hour 
on Berthe' s day suggested at once something 
more important than an ordinary visit. 

Amxongst the manj^ institutions of modern 
Paris life a day is one which deserves to be 
noticed. Everybody has a day. Women in 



WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



77 



society have a day from necessity, for tlie 
conyenience of themselyes and tlieir visitors, 
whose name is legion. Women not in sccietj^ 
liave a day because they like to think it a 
necessity. The former speak of their day as 
mon jour/' and, as a rule, hate it because it 
ties thein down to stay at home one day in 
the week. The latter speak of it as mon 
jour de reception," and glory in it. For the 
former it is a mere episode, an occasion 
amongst many for gossip, mostly of the 
Grandhomme and Folibel kind, but now and 
then of a more serious character, sometimes 
of conversation on such grave topics as politics, 
science, and even theology. For the latter it 
is a grand opportunity for dress, and dulness, 
and weary expectation. Madame, attired in 
state, sits on a sofa,, like Patience on a monu- 
ment, smiling, not at grief but at hope ; hope 
of the visitors who come like angels few and 
far between. Woe be unto the false or foolish 
friend, who, under pretext of business, or 
kind inquiries, or lack of time, should pass 
bv this day of days, and call on some commoi]. 



78 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



insignificant day, when neither inadame nor 
the salon nor the valet de chamhre are in 
toilet to receive him ! 

But it is not into one of these drearv^ 
Saharas that we have strayed. Berthe's day 
is as busy as a fair. So great is the con- 
course of visitors, that, although her reception 
begins officially at three, the room begins to 
fill long before that time, her friends pro- 
testing that the crowd is so great, there is 
no getting to say a word to her unless they 
break through the consigne, and come early. 

A service ! " she repeated, eagerly ex- 
tending her hand to Madame de Beaucoeur. 
I hope that is not too good to be true." 
^' Toujours charmante ! " said Madame de 
Beaucoeur, pressing the fair little hand ; 
" but the service I am going to ask does not 
directly concern myself. You know Madame 
de Chassedot ? " 

Slightly. I meet her par ci, par la; we 
bow, but we don't speak." 

To-day she has requested me to speak 
for her. Do you know her son at all ? " 



'^WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 79 



A fair youth, tall, and rather good 
looking ? " 

"Precisely." 

" I have seen him often, and I think I 
danced with him at the Marine the other 
night," said Berthe, reflectively. 

" Then yon know him at his best. He 
dances admirably ; but I believe that is the 
only thing he does well," was Madame de 
Beaucoenr's comment. 

" II est tres-bete ?" observed Berthe. 

" Pas tres-bete, bete simplement. But this 
is a detail. He is, as you know, good-looking, 
hien ne^ and very rich. He is heir to his 
uncle, and will be one day, therefore, at the 
head of two of the finest chateaux in France, 
each representing two millions of money. The 
paternal millions have grown smaller since the 
old gentleman's death; but the uncle's will 
replenish them by-and-by ; he is in very bad 
health, and seventy- six years of age ; so his 
nephew cannot have very long to wait now, 
and he is safe to have a splendid fortune by 
the time he settles down." 



80 WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



En attendaiit— ? " said Bertlie, pretend- 
ing not to see the drift of these preliminaries. 

" En attendant, his mother is very anxious 
to marry him." 
^^To whom' " 

Ah, that's jnst it ! She spoke confi- 
dentially to me, and begged I would look out 
a daughter-in-law for her. I promised I would 
do my best. Like all belles-meres, she wants 
impossibilities — perfection, in fact : sixteen 
quarterings en regie, that is of course under- 
stood, equal fortune, and so on ; but, though 
Edgar's fortune will be nominally four millions, 
as he has compromised one million already, 
she would count it as non venu, and only 
exact three millions with his wife. You 
see," continued Madame de Beaucoeur, she 
is willing to do things en grand seigneur." 

How did he compromise the odd mil- 
lion?" inquired Berthe, evasively. 

^^Mon Dieu! On n'y regarde pas de si 
pres ! " said Madame de Beaucoeur, smiling 
at the naivete of the question. 

Apres ? " said Berthe. 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 81 



" The girl must be pretty and well brought 
up. I must tell you, ma chere," continued 
the negotiatrix, with a sort of diflBdence, as 
if conscious that vshe was about to state some 
ludicrous or damaging fact— I must tell 
you that Madame de Chassedot donne dans 
la haute devotion, and she would like to find a 
daughter-in-law qu.i y donnerait aussi. Other- 
wise she is the best of women, good-natured 
and intelligent, and disposed to do all in her 
power to make her son's wife happy." 

And the son himself^ does he pledge 
himself at all towards the same end ? " 

Ah ! there is the difficulty ! Unfor- 
tunately, he won't even hear of being mar- 
ried. The moment his mother mentions the 
subject, he turns it ofi* with a joke, or, if she 
insists, he flies into a tantrum, rushes out of 
the house, and she doesn't see him again for 
a week. You can fancy how this complicates 
the matter for her, poor woman." 

It certainly is a comphcation," observed 
Berthe. 

And it makes it the more incumbent 

6 



82 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



on us to help lier/' continued the envoy. I 
promised that I would enlist your good 
offices in her behalfj and that she might count 
upon them. Did I promise too much ? " 

If you promised that I would marry her 
son for her, nolens volens, you certainly 
did/' replied Berthe, laughing ironically. 

Oh I did not go that length," protested 
Madame de Beaucoeur, who began to feel 
snubbed, and laughed very heartily to hide 
her pique, I only said you were more 
likely than any other woman in Paris to 
know the girl who united all she was looking 
for ; and that if you did know her, you would 
give Madame de Chassedot an opportunity of 
meeting her.'' 

" And how about Monsieur de Chassedot 
meeting her ? " inquired Berthe, perversely ; 
" after all, I suppose, they must look each 
other in the face once before they swear 
eternal love and duty j)ar devant Monsieur 
le Maire ; and if this disobliging young man 
flies out of the room at the bare mention 
of a wife — ? Chere Madame, wdth all 



WANTED THEEB MILLIONS." 



83 



due respect for your liigli diplomatic abilities, 
believe rne^ tliis enterprise is beyond them J* 

''It is not beyond his motliers/' said 
Madame de Beaucoeur. Trust me^ if you 
find the right person, you may be quite satis- 
fied Madame de Chassedot will m^anage the 
rest.'' 

Berthe was going to reply, when the 

door opened, and the Princess de M was 

announced. 

As soon as the usual greetings were ex- 
changed, the three ladies entered on what 
formed the chit-chat of the day, viz., the 
cholera, the exhibition of paintings, and a 
new comedy called La Beaute du Diable,'' 
that was setting all Paris by the ears. But 
they were not left long alone; the rooms 
filled rapidly; the new-comers, however, 
instead of checking the conversation, en- 
livened it, every fresh arrival falling' in with 
the current, and giving it additional anima- 
tion. The cholera was still on the tapis 
when an old senator joined the circle. 

" The Empress does not believe it to be 



84 '^WAIs^TED THREE MILLIONS." 



contagious," he said, and holds it of primary 
importance that the popular prejudice on this 
point should be broken down both by theory 
and practice. This was the chief motive of 
her visit to Amiens. I have just been to the 
Tuileries, and heard all about it.'' 

Eacontez, monsieur, racontez ! '' ex- 
claimed Berthe, recognizing his white hairs 
by making room for him on the sofa beside 
her. 

Yous me comblez, madame ! '' said the 
old courtier, bending to his knees before 
assuming the place of honour. I should, 
at least, have run the gauntlet with the 
plague myself to deserve to be so favoured. 
You are aware," he continued, in a more 
serious tone, that it was raging furiously at 
Amiens. The townspeople were so panic- 
stricken that the victims were deserted the 
moment they were seized. Every house was 
closed; no one walked abroad for fear of 
rubbing against some infected thing or per- 
son ; and, except the Sisters of Charity going 
in and out of the condemned houses and 



"WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 85 



hospitals, there was hardly a soul to be 
seen in the streets. In fact, it threatened 
to be a second edition of the plague of Milan. 
The Empress, hearing all this, suddenly 
announced her intention of visiting the city. 
The Emperor strongly opposed the project, 
and her ladies seconded him. The Empress, 
however, held her own against them all, like a 
Spaniard and a woman ; she said she would 
have nobody run any risk on her account, 
and declared herself determined to go alone ; 
whereupon two of her ladies, piquees d'hon- 
neur, volunteered to go with her. They 
started by the first train next day, and 
returned the same evening, no one the worse 
for the journey.'' 

I dare say,'' remarked a young creve\ a 
Legitimist enrage ^ who always spoke of the 
Emperor as ce gaillard-la^ and who would 
have as soon dined with his concierge as at 
the Tuileries ; " they made a tour in a close 
carriage round the town, and took pre- 
cious care to keep clear of the dangerous 
quarters." 



86 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



" I have the word of her Majestj to the 
contrary, monsieur/' affirmed the senator ; 
"she visited the wards, inquired minutely 
into their organization, and spoke to several 
of the sufferers. The equerry who ac- 
companied her told me that she actually 
held the hand of one poor fellow who was 
dying, and stooped down, putting her ear 
close to his lips, to hear something he had 
to say about his little children : there were 
three of them; their mother had died that 
morning, and now they were going to be left 
quite destitute. The Empress sent for them 
on the spot, embraced them in the presence 
of their father, and promised to take care 
of them. He expired soon after, blessing 
her." 

" Noble coeur ! murmured Berthe, and 
a tear stood in her eye. 

Comedie, haute comedie ! " sneered the 
creve du Faubourg. 

''Politique plutot," observed a deputy of 
the Centre, stroking his beard ; '' pohtique.'' 

" Politique de comedienne ! said a de- 



" WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



87 



puty of the Left ; but it is time and trouble 
lost ; the people are no longer duped by that 
sort of charlatanism/' 

Say, rather, the people are tired of peace 
and prosperity, and want a change at any 
cost/' said the Princess de M — — . ''You are 
the most unmanageable people under the 
sun ; the wonder is how any one can be 
found willing to govern you/' 

"That is quite true/' assented Berthe, 
whose politics were of no absolute colour? 
but leaned towards Imperialism ; partly 
because it was the established order of 
things, and because the court was pleasant, 
and its hospitalities magnificent. " We are 
an unruly nation ; but whatever one thinks 
of the Empire, it is ungrateful and unjust 
not to give the Empress credit at least for 
good intentions in this visit to Amiens. It 
was an act of heroic charity and courage ; 
and that it was a wise step as well as a bold 
one, is proved by the fact that the pestilence 
has decreased sensibly from the very day of 
her visit." 



88 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



OI15 maclame, de grace!" protested in 
chorus the creve\ and the two deputies. 

" The bulletins of the last week are there 
to prove it," said Berthe. 

" Where are they fabricated ? " demanded 
the deputy of the Left; perhaps M. de 
Taitout could tell us ? " 

Monsieur de Taitout was chef de Cabinet 
au Ministere de I'lnterieur. 

They were issued at Amiens by the 
medical men attached to the hospitals, and 
by the Commission of Public Health, I pre- 
sume," replied the ministerial functionary, 
with hauteur. 

Ces messieurs had a roll of red ribbon 
a-piece, I hope, in return for the satisfactory 
bulletins ? " pursued the deputy of the Left, 
superciliously. 

You appear well informed, monsieur ; 
we must infer that you are honoured by the 
confidence of the Minister of Police ? " 
observed M. de Taitout, provoked out of his 
official smoothness, and darting a glance of 
peculiar meaning at the deputy. 



" WANTED THREE MILLIONS.'' 



89 



The latter bit his lip and reddened, while 
a suppressed titter ran through the company. 
This suspicion of -complicity with the police, 
which the established system of compression, 
and its attendant esinonnage engendered too 
readily, was apt to fall sometimes on the most 
unlikely subjects. It may have been quite 
erroneous in the present instance, but it was 
all the more galling from the fact that certain 
previous on-dits had prepared the public mind 
for credulity. Many people attributed the 
fierce antagonism of the deputy to his having 
been disappointed in obtaining a prefecture 
under the existing government. 

But, be this as it may, Berthe, though 
she disliked, and unconsciously perhaps mis- 
trusted the deputy, did not choose that he 
should be made uncomfortable in her salon. 
She did not like the turn the conversation 
was taking, and by way of diverting it without 
breaking off too brusquely from the line of 
discussion, she said, addressing an Acade- 
mician, who had just joined the circle : 

Is it not quite possible, admitting panic 



90 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS.'* 



to be tlie first condition of contagion, that the 
presence of the Empress in the midst of the 
sick and dying may have had such an effect 
on the moral of the people as wonld suffi- 
ciently explain, on common- sense grounds, 
the immediate decrease of the disease ? In- 
struct us, monsieur le philosophe !" 

" Madame, I come here to learn, rather 
than to teach, replied the man of science, with 
the gallantry of his three-score years and ten ; 
" but since you do me the honour to ask my 
opinion, I am happy to say it has the good 
fortune to agree with your own. The people 
were convinced that to breathe the infected 
atmosphere was to die. The Empress, of her 
own free impulse, comes boldly into the midst 
of it, stands beside the dying and the dead, 
breathes long draughts of contagion, and does 
not die; ergo, contagion is a fallacy, and 
panic is straightway killed.'' 

Yotre ergo, monsieur, est un homme 

d'esprit!" said the Princess de M , 

tapping the arm of her chair with her parasol ; 
and now that we have killed panic, let us 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 91 



dismiss the plague, and talk of sometliing 
else!" 

Yes/' said Berthe, " or else talking 
miglit bring on a panic, and make us catch, it. 
Have you been lately to the theatre, mon- 
sieur ?" 

I went last night to see La Beaute du 
Diable," replied the Academician. 

Ah ! and what did you think of it ?" 

I think, madame — que la France est 
bien malade," said the old man, impres- 
sively. 

One need not be ^ un des quarante ' to 
find out that," remarked the deputy of the 
Left. 

*'Is it so very bad?" inquired Berthe, 
turning a deaf ear to this not very polite com- 
ment. 

It is so bad," replied the Academician, 
that if I had not seen with my own eyes, and 
heard with my own ears, I could not have 
believed it possible that the French drama 
and the French public could have fallen so 
low. I asked myself w^hether I was in Paris 



92 



WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



or in Sodom. From first to last, tlie piece is 
a tissue of licence and blasphemy for which I 
know no parallel, even approximately, in the 
most ribald productions of ancient or modern 
literature." 

Dear me!" exclaimed Berthe, you 
quite horrify me. We had just arranged a 
jpartie fine to go and see it on Wednesday !" 

Take an old man's advice, madame; 
don't go," said the Academician, gravely. 

^^Ma foi," said the Princess de M -, 

twirling her parasol, and lolhng back in the 
IvoLuviovi^ faiiteiiil ; " it all depends if one is 
prepared to risk it. Moi, je me risque !" 

The philosopher bowed to the brave lady, 
but made no comment. 

Why does the censorship permit such 
bad comedies to be played?" asked Madame 
de Beaucoeur; I thought its raison d'etre 
was the protection of la morale publique ?" 

La morale politique, madame," corrected 
the deputy of the Left, with an air of mock 
solemnity ; and most conscientious it is in 
the discharge of its duty. An irreverent in- 



"wanted theee millions." 93 



sinuation against the governmeiit suffices to 
bring down anathema on a comedy or a drama, 
from which no amount of talent can redeem 

it. My friend, Henri , has just had a 

chef-d'oeuvre, the result of a whole year's toil, 
rejected on the plea that some passages which 
cannot be removed without changing the 
entire plot, might be construed by sensi- 
tive Imperialists into a covert hit at the 
dynasty." 

" The judges would serve the dynasty 
better by exercising a little wholesome re- 
straint over what may prove more fatal to it in 
the long run than even servile flattery," ob- 
served the philosopher. " What think you, 
M. le Senateur ?" 

The senator shrugged his shoulders. 

" Que voulez-vous ? One must reckon 
somewhere with human nature ; you cannot 
lock it up on every side ; if you don't leave a 
safety-valve to let ofi* the superfluous steam 
the ship will blow up." 

" Take care the valve does not turn out 
to be a leak that will sink the ship !" said the 



94 



WANTED THKEE MILLIOi\^S." 



Academician. Our press and our literature 
are like a canker eating into the very heart of 
the nation, and rotting it ; the people are 
taught to scoff at everything ; to make a jest 
of everything, human and divine ; nothing is 
sacred to the venal scribes who pander to the 
base passions of humanity, and prey upon its 
vices and follies. When public morality has 
come to that pass where one of the first writers 
of the day publicly vindicated the devil's claim 
to our respect as ^ un revolutionnaire malheu- 
reux,' and when one of the last writes and 
prints such a sentence as ^ je vous cede le bon 
Dieu, mais laissez-moi le diable!' and that 
the cynical blasphemy calls out no stronger 
comment than a laugh or a shrug : when, I 
say, le lyrogres has arrived at this point, it is 
time the ship's hold were looked to !" 

" I grant you the signs are disquieting," 
assented the senator, shaking his head ; and 
having conceded so much he took out his 
enamelled tabatwre^ and prepared a pinch. 

A sign to my mind much more to the 
purpose, is that the nation is mortellement 



^'wanted theee millions." 95 



en7iuyee/^ observed the depute du Centre, witli 
a weighty emphasis on the adverb ; when 
France ennuies herself it is time to cry — 
gare!" 

Gare a qui said the Princess de 
. 

To the Government, madame. We have 
had this one now eighteen years — three years 
beyond the lease France usually gives to any 
government — and the people are sick of it. 
Paris especially is ennuyee to death of 
late." 

Paris is always ennuyee, unless she has 
an exhibition, or a war, or a carnival of some 
sort to keep her in good humour," said 
Berthe ; but Paris is not France. 

^^Paris, c'est le monde, madame !" replied 
M. du centre, with a melodramatic accent, 

" Le monde, non," protested Madame 
de M le demi-monde peut-etre. 

There was a laugh at this little sortie 
of the Princess's, and before it subsided a 
group of new arrivals, amongst v\^hom were 
the snow-storm and her mother, broke up 



96 



WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



the controversy. Several of the company, 
some who had not spoken a word to Berthe, 
but had only made acte de presence in the 
crowd, withdrew. Madame de Beaucoeur 
and the Princess remained. 

" Quelle ravissante jeune fiUe ! " said the 
former, in a sotto voce to the Princess, as 
Madame de Galliac and her daughter sat 
down near them. Who is she ? " 

Mademoiselle de Galhac ; she is the 
parti of the season ; on dit^ gives her four 
millions." 

" Indeed ! " Madame de Beaucoeur, on 
marriageable maids intent, pricked up her 
ears, ^'How odd I should not have met 
her before ! " 

She has only lately arrived from Brit- 
tany. Our hostess patronizes her very 
zealously; I suppose she is looking out for 
a husband for her." 

Madame de Beaucoeur said nothing ; but 
committed the remark to her mental note- 
book. Why had Berthe not suggested this 
girl to her for Madame de Chassedot ? It 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



97 



was the very thing she wanted. Old name 
— four milhons — one too many, but the 
inequality was on the right side — beaury. 
and, of course, good principles. How could 
Berthe be so disobliging, or so thoughtless ? 
Big with a mighty purpose, and unable to 
resist the besoin epanclmnent^ Madame de 

Beaucoeur turned to the Princess de M , 

and in the strictest confidence opened her 
heart to her. 

But Madame de M was a foreigner, 

and did not fall in sympathetically with 
French views on the subject of marriage, 
and was moreover given to call things 
bluntly by their names. 

A girl with her name, and beauty, and 
money, will find plenty of willing pur- 
chasers," she replied, " and I see no con- 
ceivable reason for supposing she would 
let herself be forced on an unwilling one. 
There are husbands to be had at all prices, 
and she can bid for the best ; the best, 
moreover, are already bidding for her." 

*'Ah!" said Madame de Beaucoeur, 

7 



98 



"wanted theee millions/' 



alarm mingling with curiosity in the inter- 
jection, 

" Why, you don't think a prize like that 
would be twenty-four hours in the Paris 
market without having scores of the highest 
bidders fighting for it ? " 

" How mercenary men are ! It is quite 
disgusting. They are greatly changed since 
my day," said the Frenchwoman. 

Madame de Beaucoeur was on the sunny 
side of forty ; she had been married at 
eighteen, from school, to a man she had 
never laid her eyes on till ten days before 
her marriage. Of the many and exciting 
interviews that had previously taken place 
between notaries and helles-meres, she had 
heard no particulars, and being a rather 
romantic young lady in those days, she 
had ignored their existence altogether. 

" Yery likely ; but in this case it strikes 
me the woman is the mercenary party ; you 
say the young man resents being married 
at all, big dot or little dot?^' said Madame 
de M , laughing, and speaking rather 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS.'* 99 



louder than was desirable in tlie vicinity of 
tlie marketable dot. 

Introduce me to Madame de Galliac," 
said her companion, striking a coup d'etat 
on the spot. The request was complied 
with, and the two ladies were soon absorbed 
in each other. 

How are we going to kill the week, 
chere madame?" asked the Princess de 

M , who had risen to go, and now 

pounced upon Berthe as she stood speed- 
ing a parting guest at the door; ^^for 
Wednesday we have the Beaute dii Diable^ 
and a diner au cabaret ; Thursday there is a 
petit souper^ at Tortoni's after the Palais 
Royal ; but the other three days, what shall 
we do with them ? " 

"I have not an idea just now: we will 
talk it oyer to-morrow night at Madame de 
Beaucoeur's ; but do not count on me for 
Wednesday," said Berthe; have changed 
my mind about going." 

What ! you are going to play us 
false!" exclaimed the Princess, her ugly 



100 WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



but expressive features lighting up witli 
irresistible humour, while her eyes shot out 
a cold sardonic glance into Berthe's ; " that 
old perruque has put you out of conceit 
with it ? But no ! It is too absurd, ma 
chere ! " 

Absurd or not, I don't intend to go/' 
said Berthe, resolutely ; I'm not as brave 
as you are ; je ne veux pas me risquer." 

" It will gefc abroad that you have turned 
devote ; de grace, madame, ne vous donnez 
pas ce ridicule ! Tout Paris va se moquer de 
vous ! " 

" Tout Paris may say what it likes," 
answered Berthe, bridling up, while a blush 
of defiant pride suffused her cheek ; I 
despise its gossip, and, in short, I don't mean 
to go." 

Seriously?" 
Quite seriously." 

The Princess lifted her shoulders slowly 
till they touched her ears, and then as slowly 
let them fall. 

" Then there is no use in proposing to 



"wanted the.ee millions.'* 101 



you a little distraction we had planned for 
Saturday, an escapade in dominoes and masks 
to tlie bal de Topera ? " 

"Merci! Je ne veux pas me risquer ! " 
said Bertlie, smiling. 

" Adieu ! you will make a charming saint, 
but I fear I shan't love the saint as much 
as " 

The sinner," added Berthe, good- 
humouredly ; " oh, well, I've not donned 
sackcloth and ashes yet, so you must not 
give me up for lost quite; but don't sup- 
pose," she continued, seeing Madame de 
M — — 's eyes fixed on her with a puzzled 
expression, "that I mean to reproach you 
for amusing yourself. Our positions are 
different : you have your husband to stand 
between you and evil tongues ; and again, 
you are not amongst your own people here. 
Would you go on at Berlin as you do in 
Paris?" 

*'0h!!!" The Princess threw up her 
parasol, caught it again, and laughed out 
loud. Mais Paris c'est un cabaret, on y 



102 WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



fait ce qu'on veut ! " slie said; and with this 
exhaustive apology passed out. 

Berthe had turned in to the second 
salon^ where some of the earher visitors 
had gathered to leave room for new arrivals 
in the first; but she was hardly seated when 
the door was again opened^ and Frangois 
announced — 

"Le Marquis de Chassedot! " 

He could not have startled his mistress 
more if he had announced the Marquis de 
Carrabas. Was it a trap set for Edgar by 
Madame de Beaucoeur? But no. Made- 
moiselle de Galliac's presence to-day was 
quite fortuitous, and moreover, Madame de 
Beaucoeur did not know her, so she could 
have laid no scheme into which the heiresses 
visit adjusted itself. 

"You were kind enough to permit me to 
pay my respects to you, Madame la Com- 
tesse," said the young man, walking up 
to Berthe, with his hat in both hands, and 
blushing violently, while he doubled him- 
self in two before her. " I hope I am not 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 103 



indiscreet in availing myself so precipitately 
of the permission." 

Berthe smiled her gracious clemency on 
the indiscretion ; and the gentleman, backing 
a few steps, carried himself and his hat to a 
group of politicians, who were shaking hands 
in the window and making appointments 
before separating. 

Quel toupet ! " muttered Berthe, laugh- 
ing to herself at the cool audacity of M. do 
Chassedot ; " I was kind enough to permit 
him ! Perhaps he is under a delusion, and 
mistook somebody else's permission for mine ; 
or perhaps it's a ruse of his mother's to 
put' him unawares in the way of the three 
millions." 

But Berthe was wrong. M. de Chassedot 
had really said something to her, between 
the hnks of the cliaine des dames^ about 
placing himself ^t her feet, and, as she looked 
very smiling and gracious, he took the smiles 
for a permission. He had no view in asking 
it beyond the pleasure of being received in 
the salon of the fashionable beauty, where he 



104 "wanted three millions.'' 



was not likely to meet his mother. It would 
be a free territory, where he might flit about 
without being in perpetual dread of falling 
into some matrimonial net, such as she was 
for ever spreading for him in the salons of 
her own particular allies. Madame de Beau- 
coeur did not fiofure amonofst those redoubt- 
able belligerents. When she called during 
the day at Madame de Chassedot's, Edgar 
was never there, and as the habitues of the 
Marquise's Mardis soirs were recruited chiefly 
amongst the old fogies and devotes of the 
Faubourg — a class of her fellow- creatures 
whom Madame de Beaucoeur carefully avoided 
— there was no chance of his meeting her 
there in the evening. It was precisely this 
that made her mediation so precious to 
Madame de Chassedot ; Edgar was disarmed 
before her ; he did not mistrust her ; and 
when, reconnoitring the company in the 
adjoining room, through the broad glass 
panel that divided the salons, he spied her 
sitting next a very pretty girl, the discovery 
gave him no shock. Madame de Beaucoeur^ 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 105 



catching his eye, nodded famiharly to him, 
and he at once made his way towards her, 
and took up a position behind her chair. 

I should hke to go very much/' she said, 
continuing her conversation with Madame de 
GaUiac ; but I have not been there this 
year. One cannot go without a gentleman, 
and Monsieur de Beaucoeur is always too 
busy in the evening to accompany me." 

" There are hundreds who would cross 
swords for the honour of replacing him, 
madame," declared M. de Chassedot, stooping 
over her chair, and throwing into his voice 
and manner all the empressement which her 
position as a married woman authorised. 

Then you shall have the honour without 
crossing swords for it," said the lady, briskly. 
" Come and fetch me to-morrow evening at 
eight o'clock ; unless you are equal to a diner 
de menage with myself and Monsieur de Beau- 
coeur, and in that case come at half-past six." 

" Madame ! Tant de bonte me confond ! " 

Madame de Beaucoeur said au revoir to 
the heiress and her mother, kissed hand to 



106 WANTED THREE MILLIONS.'' 



Berthe in the distance, and, granting M. de 
Chassedot's request to be allowed to see lier 
to her carriage, they left the room together. 

" Who is that young lady who was sitting 
beside you, madame ? " he asked, with some 
curiosity, when they were out of earshot on 
the staircase. 

" Mademoiselle de Galliac. Did you never 
see her before ? " 

^' Yes ; but I did not know her name." 
How stupid of me ! I ought to have 
presented you. She is a nice girl to talk to." 

She's an uncommonly nice girl to look 
at. A I'honneur de vous revoir, madame ; 
a demain soir." And the carriage rolled off, 
leaving M. de Chassedot bowing on the 
trottoir. 

Punctual to the minute, he presented him- 
self in Madame de Beaucoeur's drawing-room 
as the clock chimed the half-hour. M. de 
Beaucoeur had, of course, an appointment at 
the club, which, to his infinite regret, pre- 
vented his escorting his wife to the Concert 
Musard, so he remained sipping his cafe noir^ 



" WANTED THREE MILLIONS," 107 



and wished tliem a pleasant evening. The 
gardens, althougli they were only beginning 
to fill, presented a brilliant and animated 
appearance. The central pavilion, its roof 
and pillars girdled with light, glowed like 
the starry temple of an Arabian tale ; while 
from within, the orchestra sent forth its 
melodic stream, now tender and plaintive as 
the zephyr wooing the rose at midnight, now 
loud and valiant in the rhythmic dance. 
Balls of light gleamed through the foliage, 
and made every tree stand out in radiant 
illumination. But not everywhere. Artis- 
tically mindful of the worth of contrast in 
scenic effect, the light distributed itself so as 
to leave parts of the garden in comparative 
shade ; here those who shrunk from the 
dazzling glare of the centre could walk and 
enjoy the scene and the music without in- 
convenience. 

««Why, there is Madame de Galliac, I 
declare ! Let us go and meet her," said 
Madame de Beaucoeur, walking on quickly. 
" What an unexpected pleasure, madame ! 



108 WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



I thought you were going to the opera 
to-night ! " 

So we were; but at the last moment we 
found there was a mistake about the box, 
and Henriette was so disappointed that, to 
console her, I proposed coming here for an 
hour," 

Pauvre enfant ! But I assure you it is 
no despicable compensation; the music is 
excellent. Let us go round by the left ; the 
breeze is blowing from that quarter/' said 
Madame de Beaucoeur ; and without taking 
the slightest notice of M. de Chgbssedot, she 
turned to walk on with Madame de Galliac. 

" Madame ! " whispered the young man, 
touching her on the arm, and intimating by a 
sign that she had left him out in the cold. 

Oh ! que je suis etourdie ! Allow me to 
introduce you. Le Marquis de Chassedot — 
la Baronne de Galliac." 

" Ma fiUe, monsieur," said the latter point- 
ing to Henriette. 

Everybody having bowed to everybody, 
the party moved on, the young people walking 



WANTED THEEE MILLIONS.'' 109 



in front. M. de Chassedot^ serenely uncon- 
scious of being canglit in a trap, and finding 
Henriette a lively, unaffected girl, talked 
away pleasantly, confining himself, of course, 
to authorised insipidities, such as the weather, 
the music, the decoration of the gardens, etc., 
and making himself, as he could do when he 
liked, very agreeable. 

Is not that the Comtesse Berthe's 
voice ? " said Henriette, stopping and bend- 
ing her ear in the direction of the sound. 

I think it is. Let us walk on and see," 
said her mother. 

JSTow, though Madame de Beaucoeur liked 
Berthe, and was generally delighted to meet 
her anywhere, on this particular occasion she 
was the last person in Paris she cared to 
meet. It was not possible, however, to avoid 
her without awaking in M. de Chassedot's 
mind suspicions which might prove fatal to 
her benevolent designs on himself. When 
Berthe came up with the quartet her surprise 
was great, and though she said nothing, her 
face expressed it so plainly that Henriette, 



110 



" WANTED THEEE MILLIONS." 



being intelligent, noticed it, and betlionglit to 
herself that there must be some stronger 
reason for it than the ostensible one of meeting 
Madame de Beaucoeur and Madame de Galliac 
at the Concert Musard. 

Berthe had four gentlemen in attendance 
on her : a tall^ distinguS'looking Austrian, who 
spoke to no one, and squirted vinegar out of 
his eyes at a handsome young Breton, on 
whose arm Berthe leant; one Englishman, 
whose notablest idiosyncrasy was an eye-glass 
that seemed a fixture in the right eye of 
the wearer, so immovably did it stick there 
morning, noon, and night ; and another of low 
stature, with a Shakesperian head. Over and 
above this guard of honour, the beautiful 
widow was accompanied by Helene de KarodeL 
She introduced the two girls, who walked on 
together, while the gentlemen and the three 
married women followed. Helene and Made- 
moiselle de Galliac had not proceeded far, 
however, when they were joined by M. de 
Chassedot. 

Mademoiselle," he said, addressing 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." Ill 



Helene, I have just made a discovery ; but 
it is of so agreeable a nature that, before I 
dare believe it, I must have your corrobora- 
tion." 

Indeed !" said Helene, with a look of 
surprise at the young man, who remained 
bare-headed awaiting her answer. Oouvrez- 
vous, monsieur, and let us hear what this 
wonderful discovery is." 

You are the daughter, I am told, of that 
brave soldier and true gentleman. Christian 
de Karodel ?" 

"I am his daughter," replied Helene, 
her eye moistening with grateful emotion at 
hearing her father so named. 

" He was my mother's first cousin, conse- 
quently I claim kinship with you," concluded 
the young man. 

" And your name is ?" 

" Edgar de Chassedot." , 

" Ah ! yes, we are cousins, I believe ; but 
as your family seemed quite to have forgotten 
the fact, we had almost forgotten it our- 
selves," replied Helene, coldly. 



112 "wanted theee milmons." 



Is it too late for ns to remember it ?" 
said Edgar, imperceptibly emphasizing the 
us^ and throwing a gentle deference into his 
tone. 

" It is strange that you should care ; but, 
since it is so, let us be cousins," and Helene 
held out her hand to him. 

Six weeks after this promenade in the 
Jardin Musard there was a diner de contrat 
at Madame de Galliac's. The fiance wore the 
fall-dress uniform of a Chasseur d'Afrique. 
His bronzed features attested long residence 
under Algerian skies, and the stars and medals 
on his breast bore witness that his time had 
not passed there in idle dalliance. The plot 
against M. de Chassedot's liberty had col- 
lapsed, to the inexpressible yexation of his 
mother. Her case was really a hard one. 
She and the family lawyer had done their 
best; all the preliminaries of her son's 
marriage with Henriette's four millions had 
been gone through ; everything was ready, 
when, the consent of the young people, as a 
necessary detail towards the final arrange- 



" WANTED THESE MILLIONS." 113 



ment, was asked, and refused. It had some- 
laow come to the youBg lady's ears that M. de 
Chassedot was no party to the business, and 
that if he allowed himself to be bullied into 
marrying her, it would be de son corps 
defendant. Mademoiselle de GaUiac there and 
then declared that she would be forced upon 
no man, were he Roi de France et de Navarre. 
And so this most ehgible marriage, for want 
of a bride and bridegroom, fell through. 

Madame de Beaucoeur then called to mind 
a nephew of her husband's, who was serving 
in Africa. He was two milKons short of 
Henriette's figure; but he had great expecta- 
tions, and was in every other respect qualified 
for the place, and, moreover, he was willing 
to be married ; he had written to his family, 
stating the fact, and requesting them to look 
out for a wife for him. Photographs were 
exchanged, character and principles inquired 
into, and vouched for satisfactorily — Henrietta 
made this a sine qua nan — and within one 
month from the day that his aunt opened nego- 
tiations with Madame de GaUiac, Alexandre 

8 



114 WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 



de Beaucoeur arrived in Paris, the affianced 
husband of Henriette de Galliac. 

They were presented to each other at a 
morning reception, and met next day at the 
diner de contrat. He took her in to dinner, 
Madame de Galhac saying to him, playfully, 
as Henriette accepted his arm : 

Maintenant faites votre cour !" 

This was easier said than done. The posi- 
tion was embarrassing. M. de Beaucoeur 
wished to avail himself of the opportunity to 
win his bride's affections ; but, like most 
bra^e men, he was timid, and the more ho 
strove to find something agreeable to say, the 
less he found it. When dessert was served, 
however, and the wine passed round, he 
plucked up courage, and bending over Hen- 
riette' s glass, he murmured in a low 
voice : 

Mademoiselle, de quelle couleur voulez- 
vous votre voiture ?" 

" Bleue, monsieur replied Henriette. 

He bowed, and they relapsed into silence. 
This was all that passed between them till 



WANTED THREE MILLIONS." 115 



they swore* at tlie altar to cling to each other 
until death did part them. 

This prosaic marriage turned out a singu- 
larly happy one. The young man was a 
gentleman, and he had a conscience and a 
heart. The girl was sensible, high-principled, 
and aflFectionate. They cared for no one else, 
and did their duty by each other. After all, 
theJ most romantic union seldom embarks with 
surer and fairer elements of happiness. 



116 



A BERLIiSr ! 



V. 

A BERLIN ! 

Summer had come, and was nearly gone. Paris 
was deserted. As autumn approaclied and 
laid its fiery finger on the city, the flaneurs 
disappeared All who could fly, fled. The 
nohle faith OUT g Imd '&ed long ago to its cha- 
teaux. The Champs Elysees and the Chaussee 
d'Antin were flying aiix eaux^ or, aux bains 
de mer ; and the Boulevards with their 
glittering shop windows^ and cafes, and 
theatres v/ere left to the mercy of the 
tourist. Perhaps the tourist would retort 
that he Avas left to the mercy of the Boule- 
vards, and, perhaps, he would be right. 
Chignoned syrens, who dwelt in glass cases, 
surrounded by myriads of glass phials ranged 
in harmonious colours from the ceiling to 



A beelin! 



117 



the floor, so as to ma^ke tlie syren look like 
tlie central point of a dazzling kaleidoscope, 
smiled throngli their crystal shell at the 
reckless man who stood outside to peep and 
wonder. He might not hear the syren's 
" Entrez, monsienr ! " but there was no being 
deaf to her smile. It drew him like a 
magnet. Would monsieur not like to 
taste their last novelty in bonbons. Cerises 
a la Victor N oir ? Would he not very much 
like to take home some little douceurs to 
madame ? 

Of course monsieur would. The weak 
mortal unbuttons his coat, and straightway 
the bees that had sipped abundantly of 
native porte-monnaies all the rest of the 
year alight on the purse of the tourist, and 
suck it, if not dry, as nearly dry as they can^ 
A busy season it is for them, this so-called 
dead season when stale bonbons and faded 
finery are dragged out, christened by new 
names, and sold to the barbarians d' outre 
manche. Paris n en veut pas, mais 
Londres, cette ville que les anglais dans 



118 



A BERLIN ! 



]eur ignorance de la langue franfaise ap- 
pellent London^ Londres trouvera cela cliar- 
mant ! " 

Merrily, busily tlie bees were plying their 
task. The long white lines of Haussman 
barracks glared shadowless in the fierce sun- 
shine ; gilded rails and balconies flashed in 
gingerbread magnificence; the dome of the 
Invalides rose up against the cloudless blue^, 
and blazed like a burning moimt in fche red 
heat that poured down from the zenith ^ 
pelting the miles of asphalte that meander 
through the city, till it softened and gave 
under your foot like india-rubber ; everything 
drooped, everything was burnt; even the 
lordly chestnuts of the Tuileries, so copiously 
watered and so carefully tended, hung their 
heads, parched and brown, and dropped 
their leaves from sheer exhaustion ; not a 
vestige of green was anywhere visible. The 
fountains were playing ; but they had a tired, 
blase look, and i3he water seemed to go on 
splashing from mere force of habit ; the flag 
was still floating above the palace, the grey 



119 



old palace tliat blinked with its million glass 
eyes in tlie blazing noon, but gave no otlier 
sign of life ; the broad walks were deserted ; 
no little feet were heard pattering on the 
gravel, no merry child laughter rang through 
the shade to scare the swallows from their 
cool siesta ; the whole scene, lately so ani- 
mated and bright, had a weary, day-after- 
the-ball look that was premature in the first 
days of July. But close by the bees were 
buzzing and bestirring themselves. 

Hark ! what sound is that ? I^ot the 
cannon's opening roar, nor the car rattling 
o'er the stony street," but a sound that jars 
upon the lively hum, and makes the hive 
suspend labour, and hush itself to listen. It 
comes from the Corps Legislatif — first a low, 
surging noise, then a clamour as of the waves 
rising and lashing themselves up for a 
tempest. Louder it grows, and nearer. It 
crosses the tepid waters of the Seine lying 
low between its banks ; lo, it is on the 
Boulevards ! At first all is indistinguishable, 
a torrent of human voice, rolling, and heaving. 



120 



A BERLIN ! 



and rusliing like the roar of a cataract. On 
it rolls, gathering strength in its progress, 
waking up the echoes of the trottoir, making 
the crisp leaves quiver and drop, and drive 
'along the dusty pavement before the breath 
of the vociferating multitude like straws 
before a bellows. 

What is it ? Is it a revolution ? " cried 
Berthe, as the horses, laying back their ears, 
stood frightened and threatening mischief. 

I don't know, madame," said the foot- 
man, who had jumped down to hold their 
heads, and now glanced up and down the 
Eue de la Paix, at the stream that was flow- 
ing past at either end to the sound of beating 
drums and braying trumpets, and all manner 
of Parisian excitableness in the shape of 
noise. ''It's more likely a patriotic demon- 
stration," suggested the coachman; ''the 
horses don't seem to like it, or else we mig^-ht 
drive up close and see." But even if the 
horses had liked it, Berthe's curiosity was 
not proof against a certain mistrust of the 
Sovereign people. The noise might turn out 



A BEELIN ! 



121 



to be notliing worse than a patriotic demon- 
stration, but Paris patriotism had many moods 
and j)hases and innumerable modes of ex- 
pressing itself; and its " attitudes/' if always 
effective from a dramatic point of view, are 
not always agreeable to come close tOj and 
whatever the character of this particular one 
might be, Berthe preferred admiring it from 
a respectful distance. 

" Turn back, and drive home by the 
Champs Elysees," she said. 

The tide had risen rapidly. The Rue de 
Eivoli was flooded. It had caught the delirium 
of the Boulevards, and was sending back 
their echoes with frantic exultation. Cabs 
and omnibuses were seized with the sudden 
insanity, private coaches caught it, foot- 
passengers caught it, gamins, bourgeois, 
messieurs les voyageurs on the tops of omni- 
buses, all en masse caught it, and were shout- 
ing as one man — 

"Yive la France! Vive la guerre! A 
Berlin ! A Berlin ! " 

Ladies and gentlemen reclining in soft- 



122 



A BERLIN ! 



cusliionecl carriages started suddenly into 
effervescence, waved hats and liandker chiefs, 
and cried, ^^A Berlin! ^^A Berlin !" Horses 
neighed and dogs barked, and the very paving 
stones shook to the popular passion. All 
Paris shouted and shrieked till the city, like 
a reeling belfry, rang with multitudinous 
peals of A Berlin ! A Berlin ! " 

Berthe's horses, scared by the uproar 
that was now close upon them, played their 
part in the general row by plunging and 
prancing, and eliciting screams of horror 
from the adjacent women and children, while 
the coachman brandished his whip, and the 
footman whirled his hat, and shouted with all 
their might, A Berlin! A Berlin!" A 
troop of gamins laid violent hands on a 
Savoyard, who was grinding " Non ti scordar 
di me," to the delight of the concierge and a 
select audience of small boys in a porte- 
cochere, and, dragging him to the fore, bade 
him at once strike up the Marseillaise. 
Luckily for the Savoyard, the despotic com- 
mand was within the compass of his hurdy- 



A BEELIN ! 



123 



gurdy ; lie turned his handle, and began 
vigorously grinding away at the Eepublican 
chant. Every man, woman, and child within 
ear-shot took up the chorus, ^^Marchons! 
Marchons ! " till the palpitating air thrilled 
to the voicing of the multitude. 

Bertho was not proof against the magnetic 
current sweeping round her. At first ter- 
rified, then bewildered, then electrified, she 
caught the intoxication and yielded to its 
impulse. 

" Vive la France ! Vive la guerre ! A 
Berlin ! A Berlin ! " and the fair hand was 
thrust from the window, and waved its snowy 
little flag as the carriage moved slowly past 
the Tuileries Gardens. 

Emerging into the broad space of the 
Place de la Concorde, the horses seemed to 
breathe more freely, and quickening their 
steps, tore at full speed up the Champs 
Elysees. 

What possessed me to shout and cheer 
with those madmen?" said Berthe, solilo- 
quizing aloud, and laughing at the absurdity 



124 



A BERLIN ! 



of her recent beliaviour. I must have gone 
mad myself for the moment. Yive la guerre 
indeed ! Heaven help us ! We shall hear 
another cry, by and by. Thank God I have 
no brothers ! " 

Madame la Marquise do Chassedot 
attend madame/* said FrangoiSj as Berthe 
entered. 

Has she been long waiting 

A little half hour, madame." 
^*^What can she have to say?" thought 
Berthe. 

When she entered the salon Madame de 
Chassedot rose to welcome her, and looking 
up "with eyes that had wept/' extended her 
hands in a way that asked rather for sym- 
pathy than for greeting. 

" You are in trouble, madame !" exclaimed 
Berthe, her ready kindness going out at once 
to the sufferer. 

The two ladies were not friends. They 
had met at Madame de Beaucoeur's and 
Madame de Galliac's, but only once had there 
been a personal interchange of visits. Madame 



A BERLIN ! 



125 



de Cliassedofc had called on Berthe to tliaiik 
lier for her kindness to their young kins- 
woman, Helena de Karodel^ " whom the family 
had indeed of late lost sight of^ but with whom 
they were delighted to renew cousinship/' the 
marquise declared effusively, and as a proof 
of this she was carrying off Helene to the 
country to spend the long vacation with them. 
Berthe did not inform the marquise that it 
had taken all her influence with the high- 
spirited young lady to induce her to accept 
the hospitality so tardily offered. She re- 
turned Madame de Chassedot's visit; the 
latter soon left for the country^ and they had 
not met since. 

Ou% fai du cliagrin said the mar- 
quise, holding Berthe's hand, and as she sat 
down beside her, Berthe's first thought was 
of Edgar. The mother, however, was not 
in mourning. The worst had so far not 
come. 

Your son is ill she said. 
Madame de Chassedot shook her head. 
For a moment she was so choked vnth emo- 



126 



A BEELIN ! 



tion that she could not answer ; at last she 
sobbed out : 

^^I] se marie !" 
Comment ! And isn't that precisely 
what you wanted him to ^oV^ exclaimed 
Berthe. 

Je voulais le marier moi^ aujourdJliui 
G^est lui qui se marie /" replied the marquise. 

Ah ! It is a mesalliance then !" 
The fact was startling certainly, but less 
so than it might have been, owing to certain 
rumours that had prepared the public to 
believe in any extravagance coupled with 
Edgar de Chassedot^s name. 

Oh, mon Dieu non ! Mille fois non /" 
cried his mother, with quick resentment. 
" Edgar has done many hetises, but he is in- 
capable of dishonouring his name. Oh, no ! 
The girl is parfaitement nee ; she is, in fact, 
a cousin of our own.'' 

" It is her principles then, or her ^cha- 
racter that you object to ?" said Berthe, with 
some hesitation. 

Bless my soul ! She is as pious as a 



A BERLIN ! 



127 



seraph^ and as beautiful as an angel, and 
brought up like a lily!" protested the mar- 
quise waxing wrath at the bare suspicion of 
her daughter-in-law's character being any- 
thing but the best. 

Then is she a hunchback, or lame, or 
blind, or what demanded Berthe. 

81x6 is a heggar ! — a beggar who cannot 
provide her own trousseau ! It is a beggar 
who has stolen the heart of my son And 
tears of bitter disappointed motherhood flowed 
down the cheeks of the marquise. 

And her name is " 

" Mademoiselle de Karodel 

What, Helene ! Helene de Karodel, that 
brave, true, gentle creature is going to be 
your son's wife, and you are in tears, and not 
of joy ! You call her a beggar ! A woman 
whose love, if your son has been lucky enough 
to win it — and Helene is not the girl to marry 
him if he. hadn't — would be a prize for a 
prince ! And you, a Christian mother, weep 
over it, and expect to be pitied ! En verite, 
madame, s'il n'y avait pas de quoi rire, il y 



128 



A Berlin! 



avait de quoi pleurer, noii pas sur votre fils 
mais sur yous 

Madame de Chassedot was so staggered 
by this unexpected sortie that slie was actually 
struck dumb. 

Do you know," slie said, after a pause, 
looking steadily at Bertlie, and bringing out 
the words with slow emphasis — do you 
know, madame, that my son has four millions 
of patrimony, and that he might have married 
any girl in France 

Admitting that they were one and all 
ready to marry M. de Chassedofc, was he 
ready to marry them ?" demanded Berthe, 
answering her look with a glance as signifi- 
cant. " And as to his four millions, they are 
his excuse and justification in marrying a girl 
who has none — a woman who is as well born 
as himself, who is, you admit, pure as a hly 
and pious as an angel, quite graceful and 
pretty enough to satisfy your pride and his, 
to make her an ornament as well as a treasure 
in your son's house ; a wife who will rescue 
him from much that I should fancy would 



A beelin! 



129 



give you greater cause for tears tlian his 
marriage with sucli a woman as Helene de 
Karodel. Frankly, chere marquise, I am 
at a loss to understand you; so far from 
pitying you, if I liad heard this news from 
anyone but yourself, my first impulse would 
have been to fly to you with my heartfelt con- 
gratulations." 

Madame de Chassedot's tears were flowing 
still, but perhaps less bitterly. She was 
going to speak, when a noise of steps in the 
antechamber made her rise hastily and look 
round for a means of escape. 

Into my bed-room !" said Berthe, pulling 
aside the portiere. 

The marquise pressed her hand, and dis- 
appeared through the cloud of blue satin 
just as the drawing-room door opened, and 
Helene de Karodel holding out her arms with 
a cry of joy rushed into Berthe's. 

It was a disappointment to Helene to find 
that Berthe already knew her secret, but 
there was a great deal left to tell. Most of 
the tale was told with blushes and smiles, 

9 



130 



A BEELIN ! 



and tears that had no brine in them. Her 
marriage was to take place in a fortnight. 
Edgar, from family reasons, chose to pre- 
cipitate the denouement, and his young 
fiancee had come up to tovvn to make the 
few bridal preparations that he could not 
possibly make for her. 

It happened unluckily to be Berthe's day, 
so the usual stream of visitors began soon to 
pour in, and the tete-a-tete of the two friends 
was broken up. 

The declaration of war was the topic of 
every tongue ; but the animation with which 
it was discussed was not to be mistaken for 
enthusiasm. Some indignantly repudiated 
it, denounced the Government, and protested 
that so far from being a popular war it was 
universally condemned as senseless, and 
iniquitous, and ill-timed, and declared there 
were not ten men in the Empire who cried 
Vive la guerre !" without being paid for it. 
Others who had been on the Boulevards an 
hour ago thought differently. 

There are madmen to be found in every 



A BEELIN ! 



131 



city who are glad of ati opportunity to bark, 
and bray, and demean themselves after the 
usual manner of madmen," said th^ Austrian 
habitue, and Paris can muster as good a 
roll of lunatics on short notice as any city 
in Europe ; but I don't believe there were 
ten sane men on the Boulevards just now 
who cried ^ Yive la guerre !' " 

"I can tell you," said Berthe, ^^I saw 
hundreds, to all appearance in their right 
mind, who were crying it frantically ; I got 
quite carried away myself, and shook my 
handkerchief, and shouted with the best of 
them." 

" Why did you shout, madame ? " inquired 
the Austrian, with provoking coolness. 

" I tell you I was carried away ; I could 
not help myself ; the excitement Vas catch- 
ing." 

Of course it was. Most fevers are, 
especially malignant ones ; and I stake my 
head if you got nine-tenths of the crowd into 
a dark corner and asked why it shouted, the 
answer would be the same — they could not 



132 



A BERLIN ! 



help themselves, the excitement was catch- 
ing. If an arsenal blows up, whose fault is 
it, the pow*der's, the match's, or Jyour s, who 
fired the train? You might just as well 
blame the powder for blowing up, as the 
French people for marching, and bugling, and 
VivG-la-guerreing when they hear the blare of 
a trumpet/' 

Do you agree with monsieur?'' asked 
Berthe, addressing a quiet military-looking 
man, who had listened in silence to the fore- 
going conversation ; are the people not 
really glad of the war ? " 

^'It is difficult to say yet," replied the 
officer, ^^with the people all depends on 
how it turns out ; le succes seid a raison 
avec lui.^^ 

But you do not contemplate such an 
absurd alternative as the defeat of the French 
arms ? " 

There was a quick and general protest 
from the company. The military man alone 
stroked his moustache with a meditative air, 
and was silent. 



A BERLIN ! 



133 



Answer me, I pray you. Commandant/' 
said Berthe ; you are not afraid of our 
troops being beaten ? " 

Our troops are a matcb. for the best in 
Europe/' answered the Commandant proudly. 

And our generals ? we have no lack of 
them?" 

Kot of veterans/' was the evasive 
rejoinder. 

" Oh, the young ones will turn up as soon 
as they are wanted. We shall have a new 
generation of heroes that will out-do the 
vieux de la Vieille themselves. As for you, 
you will come back a Marshal of France ! " 
declared Berthe, merrily. 

The prophecy elicited gentle cheering and 
congratulations from the ladies, while the 
men approved in their own way, joking the 
Commandant, and dubbing him. Monsieur le 
Marechal on the spot. 

If it is not a futile or indiscreet 
question," observed Mr. Clifford, addressing 
himself to the company in general ; may I 
ask what you are going to war for?" 



134 



A BERLIN ! 



" For tlie security of the Dynasty/' 
replied a Legitimist. 

"For tlie lionour and security of France!" 
retorted the Commandant. 

^^Do you separate tliem, monsieur?" 
cried the Legitimist with mock horror ; I 
arraign you de par V Empereur for high 
treason as:ainst France ! " 

The circle laughed, and the Comman- 
dant, not caring to challenge the persijleur^ 
laughed too. 

Shall I tell you, monsieur, why we 
are going to war !" said the deputy of the 
Left to Mr. Clifford ; "we are going to 
war to desenmiyer Paris. If Paris goes on 
much longer ennuying herself, as she has 
done for the last six months, she vnll make 
a revolution ! " 

" That may be," assented his colleague 
of the Right, ''but the preventive is rather 
violent, some milder distraction might surely 
be found for Paris than taking her to Berlin; 
her ennui is hardly a sufficient reason for 
plunging the whole nation into war. No; 



A Berlin! 



135 



I prefer to tliink we are going to fight for 
the honour of France, and, qiii sait ! perhaps 
for her aggrandizement." 

Yes/' said Madame de Beauccsur, 
Monsieur le Marechal will win his baton by 
taking the Rhine for us ! " 

" Bravo ! " cried in chorus the Legitimist, 
the Right, the Left, and all the company 
in a unit; " Le Bhin! le BJiin! Vive le 
Bliin!'' 

I will be capable of shaking hands with 
ce gaillarcl Icl^ and crying ^Vive I'Empereur! ' 
myself, if he comes back with the Rhine in 
his knapsack," declared the Legitimist with 
desperate patriotism. And the sentiment was 
echoed by everyone present; Orleanist, Bour- 
bonnist, Bonapartist and Republican — all 
united in a common thirst for the blue 
waters of the Rhine, and vowed themselves 
ready to proclaim the war, whatever its 
motive, a wise war and a righteous, if it 
gave the Rhine to France. All with one 
exception; the old Academician shook his 
head, and muttered to himself some broken 



136 



A eeelin! 



sentences in which the words demonce^ fan- 
faronade^ decadence des moeurs^ feii-follet de 
la gloire, etc.j were audible through the buzz 
and hum around him. 

Quel peuple^ mon Bieu!^^ murmured 
the philosopher^ as descending the softly- 
carpeted stair^ cries of a ^ A Berlin ! Yive le 
Rhin ; Yive la Guerre V followed him through 
the open door of Berthe's apartment; fitful 
as the breeze, fierce as the hurricane; one 
word that touches our yanity, touches every 
chord in our nature, and sets us ablaze as 
the spark fires the powder flask. Qiielpeuple! 
Mon Bieii ! Que I p eup le 



AWAKENING." 



137 



VI. 

AWAKENING." 

Berthe was holding a council about bonnets 
with her maid and Mademoiselle Augustine 
when I went in. The complexion of the sky 
it would seem was a grave complication in the 
question at issue ; it was of a dull leaden 
colour, for though the heat was intense, the 
sun was not shining outright, but sulking 
under a heavy veil of cloud that looked as if 
it might explode in a thunderstorm before 
the day was over. 

" How thoughtless you are, Clarisse ! " ex- 
claimed Berthe, impatiently ; the idea of 
putting me into gi^is perle under a sky like 
that ! where are your eyes ? " 

Clarisse looked out of the window, saw 
the folly of her ways, and proposed a pink 



138 



AWAKENING." 



bonnet to relieve the unbecoming sky and the 
grey costume. The amendment was approved 
of, so she left the room to fetch the bonnet. 

" EUe est bonne fiUe, cette Clarisse, mais 
elle a des distractions etonnantes/' remarked 
Berthe. 

Mademoiselle Augustine sighed, smiled, 
and shrugged her shoulders. What will 
you, Madame la Comtesse ? Every one is 
not born an artist." 

Every one who is born with eyes in 
their head can use them," said Berthe, and 
she took up the ivory puff on her dressing 
table, and began very deliberately shaking 
out delicate clouds of poudre a la violette over 
her forehead and cheeks. 

We were going together to a marriage at 
St. Eoch, and we were to be there at noon 
precisely, the faire-part said ; so I had to 
remind Berthe that if the business of powder- 
ing and puffing proceeded at this rate we 
might save ourselves the trouble of the drive. 
With the sudden impulse that carried her so 
rapidly from one object of interest to another, 



"awakening." 



139 



she dropped the puff, snatched the pink 
bonnet from Clarisse, put it on hastily, 
seized her gloves and prayer-book, and we 
hurried downstairs and were off. 

On turning into the Faubourg St. Honore 
we found a crowd collected in front of the 
mairie. Berthe pulled the checkstring. " It's 
news from the frontier/' she exclaimed, 
eagerly ; " if we were to miss the wedding we 
must hear it." 

She sprang out of the brougham and I 
after her. The crowd was so deep that we 
could not get near enough to read the 
placards, but judging by the exclamations 
and commentaries that accompanied its 
perusal by the foremost readers, the news 
was both exciting and agreeable. 

" Fallait pas vous eflfrayer, mes petites 
dames," said a blouse who had seen us alight, 
and saw by our faces, that we were alarmed ; 
"we've beaten one half the Prussians to a 
jelly, and driven the rest across the Ehine ! " 

" The canaille ! I always said they would 
run like rabbits the first taste they got of our 



140 



"AWAKENING." 



chassepots ! " exclaimed a lad of fourteen, 
wlio lialted with arms akimbo and a basket 
of vegetables on liis head to hear the news. 

"And these are the chaps that marched 
out of Berlin to the cry of ' Nach Paris 1 
Nach Paris ! ' The beggars ! They were 
glad enough to clean our streets, aye and 
would have cleaned our boots with their 
moustaches, and thankful, just to turn a 
penny that they could not get at home," 
returned the first speaker. 

Nach Paris ^ indeed!" cried the lad 
with vegetables. " Let them come, let them 
try it!" 

"Let them!" echoed several voices; 
"we'll give them a warm welcome!" 

"Ay, that we will!" declared a pastry- 
cook from the other end of the trottoir ; 
"we'll treat them well, we'll serve 'em up 
aspic a la baionnette, and petits pois a la 
mitrailleuse, and see how they like it." 

This keen joke was received with hilarity 
and immense applause, and the pastrycook, 
his bonnet do colon perched on one side, 



" AWAKENING." 



141 



strode off with tlie air of a man wlio lias done 
his duty and knows it. 

The remarks of the crowd, if not very 
lucid, were sufficiently conclusive as to the 
nature of the placard that held it gaping 
before the mairie. The news was clearly 
good news, so, satisfied with this broad fact, 
Berthe and I jumped back into the brougham 
and continued our way to St. Roch. But it 
seemed as if there were a conspiracy against 
our getting there. At the entrance to the 
Rue Royale we were blocked by a troop of 
recruits marching down from the Boulevards 
to the Rue de Rivoh. Flags and banners, 
and bunches of tricoloured ribbons hoisted 
on sticks floated at intervals above the 
moving mass, and the stirring chaunt of the 
Marseillaise kept time to the roll of drums 
and the broken tramp of undrilled feet. The 
shops emptied themselves into the street ; 
buyers and sellers rushed out to see the 
recruits, and greet them with cheers and 
embraces, while many joined in the chorus 
and shouted enthusiastically — Marchons ! 



142 



^- AWAKENING." 



marclions pour la patrie ! " The recruits 
every now and tlien, to tlie utter detriment 
of all choral harmony, relieving their pent-up 
patriotism by hurrahing and Vive la France- 
ing with frantic energy. 

^'Pauvres diables ! " exclaimed a trades- 
man, who stood near us watching the stream 
flow past ; how many among them will ever 
set eyes on Paris again, I wonder ? " 

Ah, indeed ! " said his wife, but all the 
same, it's a proud day for them this, what- 
ever may come of it ; if our gamin were but a 
few years older he would be stepping out 
with the best of them, and, who knows, he 
might come home with a pair of gold epau- 
lets to his coat ? " 

Tush, woman ! " retorted the man, 
sharply; there is plenty of chair-a-canon 
without hhn," and he went back to his shop. 

''What a horrible thing war is when one 
comes to think of it," said Berthe, turning 
suddenly round with a flushed face ; every 
man going by the.re is the centre of another 
life, some, perhaps, of many lives, that will 



" AWAKENING." 



143 



never know happiness again if he be killed. 
It is a dreadful scourge. Thank God I have 
no brothers ! " 

The way was clear at last, and the car- 
riages w^ere able to move on. The noise and 
clamour that rose on all sides of us grew 
louder and wilder as we proceeded ; one would 
have fancied the entire population had been 
seized with delirium tremens. The news of 
a victory, coming unexpectedly after the first 
disasters of the campaign, had elated the 
popular depression to frenzy, and, as usual 
with Paris, there was but one bound from 
the depths of despair to the giddiest heights 
of exultation. Flags were thrust out of win- 
dows and chimney pots, an eruption of tri- 
colour broke out on the houses, and as if by 
magic their blank fronts were variegated with 
red, white, and blue. Innumerable gamins 
cropped up from those mysterious regions 
where gamins dwell, and whence, at a 
moment's notice, they emerge and improve 
the opportunity; the merry-faced, ragged 
young vagabonds mustered in force on the 



144 



AWAKENING." 



macadam, formed themselves into an im- 
promptu procession, and marched along 
the middle of tlie street, bawling ont the 
Marseillaise at the tops of their voices; 
older gamins caught the infection and bawled 
in response, and turned and marched with 
them. At the corner of the Place Vendome 
a citizen, unable to restrain the ardour of 
his patriotism, stopped a fiacre, jumped up 
beside the driver, and bade him stand while 
he poured out his soul to the patrie. The 
cabman reined in his steed, and stood while 
the patriot spouted his improvisation, stretch- 
ing out his arms to the column — the immortal 
column ! and pointing his periods with the 
talismanic words, Invincible ! Enfants de la 
France! Terreur de Vennemi! " and so forth. 
No speaker in the forum of old Rome ever 
elicited more inspiriting response from his 
hearers than the citizen patriot from the 
motley audience round his cab. Again and 
again his voice was drowned in vociferous 
cheers and bravos, and when he was done 
and about to retire from the rostrum, the 



AWAKENING." 



145 



cabman, altogether carried away by the emo- 
tions of the hour, flung his arms round the 
orator and pressed him to his heart, and then 
addressing himself to the assembled citizens, 
defiantly demanded if their fellow- citizen had 
not deserved well of them, if there was any 
danger to the iiatrie while she could boast 
such sons as that ! The appeal was rap- 
turously responded to by all, but most notably 
by an enfant cles Vosges^ wdio tossed his beret 
in the air and caug t it again, and cried 
vehemently — 

Prafo ! i^rafo ! Fife le ijourgeois ! Fife 
la padrie /" 

If the words had been a shell scattering 
death amongst the listeners, their efiect could 
not have been more startling. Like lightning 
the spirit of the crowd was changed ; its joy 
went out like the snuff of a candle ; it swayed 
one moment to and fro, hesitating, then a 
yell, a hiss, and a scream shot up in quick 
succession. 

" A spy ! a traitor ! a Prussian ! a Venn ! 
a la lanterne !" and away they flew in hot 

10 



146 



AWAKENING." 



pursuit of the luckless Alsatian, whose German 
accent liad raised tlie devil. Tlie orator stood 
by the column alone in his glory, pelted by 
the jargon of cries that shot across him on 
every side from the Boulevards and the many 
streets running out of the Place : Marchons ! 
a I'eau ! a Berlin ! a la lanterne V It was 
like the clash of contending tongues from 
Babel. 

This was our last adventure till we reached 
St. Eoch. As might have been expected we 
were late ; the ceremony was over, and the 
bride .was undergoing congratulations in the 
sacristy. We elbowed our way through the 
throng of guests, and were in due time ad- 
mitted to embrace the Marquise de Chassedot, 
nee Helene de Karodel, and to shake hands 
with the bridegroom, and sprinkle our com- 
pliments in proper proportion over the friends 
and relations on both sides. 

At the wedding breakfast the conversa- 
tion naturally turned to the exclusion of all 
other topics on the happy event which had 
brought us all together, but as soon as the 



AWAKENING." 



147 



bride left the table to cliange her bridal dress 
for a travelling one, everybody as if by 
common consent burst out into talk about tlie 
war, and tlie news that had thrown the city 
into such commotion. The cautious incre- 
dulity with which the bu.lletin was discussedj 
contrasted strangely with the tumult of en- 
thusiasm which we had just witnessed outside. 
It was quite clear no one believed in the 
famous victory some went so far as to 
declare it was only a blind to hide some 
more shameful disaster than had yet befallen 
the troops : others less perverse thought it 
might be only a highly-coloured statement 
of a slight success. As to the authorities, it 
was who would cast the first stone at them ; 
the government en bloc was a rotten machine 
that ought to have been broken up long ago ; 
a crazy old ship that held together while she 
lay rolling in the port, but must inevitably 
fall to pieces in the first gale of wind, and go 
down with her crew; they were all a bad 
lot ; the only exceptions to the universal rule 
of rottenness were those few ofiicials who 



148 



^' AWAKENING.^' 



liapjDenecl to be present, and wlio liad been 
left behind by tlie stupidity of the captain. 
But has not this been the case from time im- 
memorial ? In the downfall of every govern- 
ment we see the same short-sighted jealousy 
prevail against the interests of the state — 
men, who might have saved the country^ 
shoved aside by intrigants^ wdio sacrifice it 
to their own base ambitions. 

Some allusion was made to the impending 
siege of Paris, but it was cut short by the 
irrepressible merriment of the company ; the 
most sober could not speak of such an ab- 
surdity without losing their gravity ; it was, 
in fact, a heavy joke worthy of those beer- 
drinking German braggarts, and no sane 
Frenchman could speak of it as anything else 
without being laughed at. As a joke, how- 
ever, it was discussed, and gave rise to many 
minor pleasantries that provoked a good deal 
of fun. An interesting young mother wished 
the city might be invested and starved, be- 
cause it would be so delightful to starve one- 
solf to death for one's baby, to store up one's 



AWAKEXIXG." 



149 



scanty food for tlie innocent little darling, 
and see it grow fat on its mother s devoument. 
A young girl declared she qnite longed for 
tlie opportunity of proving her love to her 
father ; the Grecian daughter would be a pale 
myth compared to her, and the daughter of 
Paris would go down to posterity as a type 
of filial duty such as the world had never 
seen before. The kind and quantity of pro- 
visions to be laid in for the contingency gave 
rise to a vast deal of fun. One young creve 
hoped his maitre hotel would provide a good 
stock of cigars ; he could live on smoke by 
itself rather than Avithout smoke and with 
every other sort of nourishment ; but it 
should be unlimited smoke and of the best 
quality ; his sister thought of buying a sack 
of chocolate bon-bons, and contemplated her- 
self with great satisfaction arrived at her last 
praline, which she heroically insisted on her 
brother s accepting, while she embraced him, 
and, seated on her empty sack, expired of in- 
anition at his feet. 

Do you intend to stay for the tragedy, 



150 



AWAKENING." 



niadame inquired tlie gentleman wlio 
was to live on smoke, addressing himself to 
Berthe. 

If I believed in tlie tragedy, certainly 
not/' she replied, but I don't ; Paris is not 
going to be so obliging as to furnisli ns with 
an heroic opportunity/' 

Kot of the melodramatic sort^ perhaps/^ 
observed our Austrian friend, with a touch of 
sarcasm in his habitually serene manner^ 
but those who have any plain prose heroism 
to dispose of can take it to the ambulances^ 
where it will be thankfully received and grate- 
fully acknowledged. I went yesterday to see 
a poor fellow who is lying in great agony at 
Beaujon. His mother and sister are watching 
him day and night ; they dare not try to move 
him home lest he should die on the way. He 
lost both arms at Gravelotte. There are 
plenty more like him, mesdames^ if you wish 
to offer them your services." 
Berthe shuddered. 

Thank God I have no brothers ! " she 
murmured under her breath. 



"awakening." 



151 



"What is to be the end of it all?" I 
said; " admitting that the siege of Paris is 
an utter impossibility, half Enrope must 
be overhauled before peace is definitively 
established ? " 

" So it will be," asserted the Austrian, 
coolly ; " wait a little and you will see all 
the powers trotted out ; first Russia will put 
her finger in the melee, and then England's 
turn will come." 

" I hope England will have the sense to 
keep out of it," said Berthe, " she would 
be sure to get the worst of it, fighting 
single-handed, as she should do now." 

" That's precisely why Russia will take 
care that she does not keep out of it," 
remarked the Austrian. 

" And what would Russia gain by 
England's being worsted ?" 

" She would gain the satisfaction of 
paying off* old scores. Do you fancy that 

she has forgotten that little episode in 
the Crimea, or that she is less bent on 
revenge because she doesn't blast and blow^ 



152 



AWAKENING." 



and keep lier victim on the qiii-viye by forever 
threatening to annihilate her, and so forth ? 
'Not a bit of it. Russia neither boasts nor 
brags, but quietly holds her tongue, and 
keeps her temper, and bides her time. When 
she is quite ready, and the day is perhaps 
not so very remote, she will pick a fight with 
England, and every pope and peasant in 
holy Russia will light a candle to his holy 
images, and when the news comes in that 
England has been thrashed, they will light 
as many as will illuminate the Urals and the 
Caucasus." 

Aprfes?" I said. 
Apres what, madame ?" 
''When they have thrashed her, what 
will they do with her ?" 

Do with her ! Annex her." 
He looked me straight in the face without 
a smile on his ; but I could not beheve he 
was speaking seriously, and I burst out 
laughing. 

'' The position of the conquered territory 
might offer some difficulties in the way of 



xUVAKENING." 



153 



annexation/' I said presently; but we will 
assume that tlie obliging Providence of pious 
King William interferes in behalf of his 
Muscovite brother, and overcomes all obsta- 
cles by land and by sea, and that the 
doughty little island is constituted a colony 
of the Czar's dominions, what could he do 
with it ? What earthly use would it be 
to him ? " 

"Use!" echoed the Austrian, elevating 
his eye-brows with a supercilious smile ; "in 
the first place, he might make it a little 
succursale to Siberia. There is a whole 
generation of those unmanageable half-mad 
Poles safely walking about this side of Europe, 
plotting, and dreaming, and rhapsodising; 
only think what a convenience it would be to 
their father the Czar, if he had a centre of 
action so near them ! He would catch them 
like rabbits, and then instead of hawking them 
over the world to Nerchintz and Irkoutsk, he 
could sentence them to perpetual sciatica, or 
chronic lumbago, or a mild term of ten years' 
rheumatism in the Isle of Fogs, versus, the 



164 



AWAKENING." 



mines and the knout, and all tlie rest of 
the paternal chastisements administered in 
Siberia. Then, over and above this immense 
accommodation, he might have his docks in 
England : he might make the naughty Poles 
learn of his English subjects how to build 
ships, till, by-and-by, the navy of holy Russia 
would be the finest navy in the world, and 
big top-heavy Prussia would shake in her 
shoes, and hot4ieaded troublesome France 
would keep quietly on her knees in the mire, 
and all Europe would bow down before the 
Czar and swing the incense pot under his nose. 
Use, indeed! Let him catch England, and I 
promise yoii he'll find plenty of use for 
her." 

'^Yes," I said, '^just so; let him catch 
her." 

It was near three when the wedding 
party broke up, and Berthe and I drove 
away. We found the excitement abroad still 
unabated. At the corner of many streets 
patriots were perorating to animated crowds; 
tongues innumerable were running up and 



'''awakening." 



155 



down the gamut of noise with the most 
extraordinary variations. There is always 
something stirring in the sight of a great 
popular emotion ; but in this instance it was 
more threatening than exhilarating. You 
felt that it was labelled dangerous/' that 
terrible elements of destruction were seeth- 
ing close under the surface-foam, and that 
the chattering, and shouting, and good 
fellowship might, in a flash of lightning, be 
changed to murderous hate and madness 
beyond control. It w^as madness already, 
but it was a harmless madness so far. Was 
it nothing more ? Was there no method 
in it, I wondered, as we beheld the people 
haranguing and being harangued, rushing 
and gesticulating, and all showing in their 
faces and gestures the same feverish excite- 
ment. Were they no better than a cityful 
of apes, chattering and screaming from mere 
impulse ? Was it all quackery and cant with- 
out any redeeming note of sacrifice, and truth, 
and valour, and would all this fiery twaddle 
die out presently in smoke and dumbness ? . 



156 



AWAKENING." 



We liad turned down to tlie Ene de 
Eiclielieu and were coming back^ wlien our 
attention was arrested by a body of volunteers 
marcliing past tlie Place de la Bourse. Tliey 
were in spruce new uniforms, and tliey were 
singing something that w^as not the Marseil- 
laise^ or La Gasquette 'an pere Bugeaud, or 
any other of the many chaunts we had been 
listening to ; altogether their appearance and 
voices roused our curiosity, so Berthe desired 
the coachman to follow in their wake, that 
we might find out what troops they were, 
and what they were singing. They turned 
up the Eue de la Banque to the Place des 
Petits Peres, and there they entered the 
church of ISTotre-Dame des Victoires, as 
many of them as could find room, for they 
numbered some thousands, and nearly half 
had to remain outside. The great front doors 
were thrown open, so that those who were 
in the Place could see all that v/ent on 
within ; the soldiers were on their knees, 
bareheaded, and a venerable old priest was 
speaking to them ; but his voice was so feeble 



AWAKENING." 



157 



that what he said was audible only to those 
who were close to the altar. There was no 
need now to ask who those men were, or 
w^hence they came ; none but the men of 
Brittany^ the sons of the men who went out 
to death against the ruthless soldiery of 
Robespierre to the cry of Dieit et le Boi! were 
likely to walk through Paris bearing the 
Cross at their head, and making the ex-votos 
of Notre-Dame des Yictoires shake on the 
walls to the echo of the grand old Yendean 
hymns ; none but the descendants of the men 
whose -"strength was as the strength of ten, 
because their hearts were pure," would dare 
in these days of sneaking, shame-faced 
Christianity, to commit such a brazen act 
of faith. The volunteers were accompanied 
by a great concourse of people, mostly rela- 
tions and friends, but they remained outside, 
leaving the church to the soldiers. 

It was a strange and beautiful sight to 
see those brave, proud Bretons kneeling 
down with the simplicity of little children 
before the shrine of the Virgin Mother and 



168 



AWAKENING." 



singing their hymn to the God of Hosts, ask- 
ing His blessing on themselves and their 
arms before they went out to battle. When 
they came out of the church with the cure at 
their head, all the people of a common im- 
pulse fell upon their knees in the Place to get 
his blessing ; the men received it with bare 
heads and in silence, the women weeping, 
most of them, while some lifted up their 
hands with the old priest and prayed out 
loud a blessing on the soldiers. Then he 
spoke a few words to them, not to the 
soldiers only, or chiefly, but to all, especially 
to the women. He bade them remember 
that they had their post in the national 
struggle, and that they might be a noble 
help or a guilty hindrance as they chose. 
Those who had husbands or brothers or sons 
in the ranks would understand this without 
any explanation from him. But there were 
many amongst them who had no near rela- 
tions in danger, and who fancied, perhaps, 
that this exempted them from sharing the 
common burthen, and that they were privi- 



"awakening." 



159 



leged to stand aloof from tlie general angnish 
and anxiety. It was a pagan feeling, nn- 
wortliy of a daughter of France and still 
more * of a Cliristian. There could be no 
isolation at a time like this. All should 
suffer, and all should serve. Those, happily, 
who had no kindred of their own at the 
frontier should adopt in spirit the brave 
fellows who had left none behind ; they should 
care for them and comfort and encourage 
them from a distance, like true sisters, help- 
ing them in the battle-field with their prayers, 
and in the camp and the hospital by their 
active and loving ministration; let such 
among them as were free and fit to do it go 
and learn of that other sisterhood of the 
diviner sort how to serve as they do who 
serve with the strong pure love of charity ; 
let them who could not do this give abund- 
antly wherewith the stricken soldier might be 
healed and comforted on his bed of pain ; if 
they could not give their hands let them give 
their hearts and their money ; let them help 
by sacrifice; sacrifice of some sort was 



150 



AWAKENING." 



within tlie reach of all. He blessed them 
again at the close of his little exhortation, 
and then every one got np. The Bretons 
fell into rank, and, rending the welkm with 
one loud cry of Bieii et la France ! marched 
on to the Northern railway. 

Berthe and I had been kneeling with the 
crowd. Let ns follow and see the last 
of them/' she said; and we got into the 
brougham, and went on at a foot pace. 

The scene at the station w^as one never 
to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. 
The pathos of those rough farewells, the 
lamentations of some of the women, the Mac- 
cabean courage of others, the shrill crying of 
little children, the tears of strong men who 
felt like men, but bore up with the courage 
of soldiers and the exulting hope of Chris- 
tians ; it was a sight to make one's heart 
glad to rapture, or sad to despair. 

We had no sooner alighted than I lost 
sight of Berthe ; indeed, I had forgotten her. 
My whole thoughts were absorbed in the 
scene going on around me. It was only 



AWAKENING." 



161 



wlien tlie bell rang and the soldiers passed 
out to the deharcadere, leaving the space com- 
paratively empty, that I looked about and 
saw her in the middle of the trottoir with her 
arms round a young girl who was sobbing 
as if her heart would break. It appeared 
that she was just a fortnight married to a 
Breton lad of her own age — nineteen ; they 
had worked hard and saved all their little 
earnings these five years past in order to get 
married 5 and now, just as they were so 
happy, he had gone away from her, and she 
would never see him again ; he was certain 
to be killed, he was so good and loving 
and clever. Berthe pressed the poor child 
to her heart, and committed herself to the 
wildest pledges for the safe return of the 
young hero ; and, finally, after evoking a 
burst of passionate gratitude and love fi:'om 
the girl, who half believed her to be a bene- 
ficent fairy sent on a special mission of 
comfort to her, Berthe exacted a promise that 
she was to come and see her the next day, 
and we set our faces homewards. 

11 



162 



AWAKENING." 



We drove on for a little while in silence, 
looking eacli out of our separate portiere^ our 
hearts too full for conversation. I saw by 
Berthe's eyes that she had been crying, and 
I felt instinctively that a great struggle was 
going on within her. My whole heart was 
vibrating in sympathy with it, but I could 
not say so. After a few minutes the silence 
between us became oppressive. Berthe 
suddenly turning round, exclaimed : 

And I was thanking God that I had no 
brothers ! Blind^ selfish fool that I was ! " 

She burst into tears, and hid her face in 
her hands, sobbing convulsively. The change 
in her bright and volatile spirit seemed to 
make a change in all the world. I could no 
longer accuse the people, as I had done an 
hour ago, of being mere puppets dancing to 
a tune and throwing themselves into attitudes 
that meant no more than a sick man's raving. 
No, it was not all cant and tinkle and false 
echo ; there was substance under the sym- 
bolizing ; there were men amongst them who 
worshipped God and were proud to proclaim 



AWAKENING." 



163 



it ; there were hearts that seemed dead, but 
were only sleeping. Paris was dancing in 
mad mirth like a harlequin to-day, but to- 
morrow it would be different : to-morrow the 
smoke and the flame would go out, leaving 
behind them the elements of a great nation 
burnt pure of the corroding dross that had 
choked and held them captive so long. 

On arriving at home Berthe found a 
costume which had just come from M. Grand- 
homme's laid out on her bed. At any other 
moment the sight would have claimed her 
delighted attention, but she turned from it 
with a feeling of indifference now, almost of 
disgust. 

Clarisse, who had been puzzling over 
some new trick in the trimming, took it up 
in a flurry, and was for trying it on at once 
to see how it fitted, and whether the novelty 
became her mistress; but Berthe, with a 
movement of impatience, told her to put it 
away, that she was in no mood for attending 
to hetises just then. The girl opened her 
eyes in astonishment. A costume of Grand- 



164 



AWAKENING.'' 



homme's that cost eleven liundred francs to 
be called a hetise ! It was flat profanity. 
She left the room with a painful presentiment 
that something serious was amiss with Ma- 
dame la Gomtesse. 

As soon as Berthe was alone, she began to 
think. It was a new experience in her life 
this process of thinking, and she was hard 
pressed by it ; for it was no vacant reverie 
that she was indulging in, but a sharp, com- 
pulsory review of her past and present ex- 
istence, and the result was anything but 
soothing. Her life up to this day had been 
the life of a butterfly — gay, airy, amusing, 
very enjoyable to herself, and harmless 
enough as regarded her fellow- creatures. 
She had drunk her fill of the good things of 
life, enjoying herself in every possible way; 
legitimately ; she was incapable of wronging 
or hurting any one ; she was extravagant in 
her dress and other luxuries, but her fortune 
allowed this, and she made no debts. So far 
her life was blameless, and, indeed, if she 
compared it with many of the lives around 



^' AWAKENING." 



1C5 



her it was a very respectable one. But 
suddenly her standard was knocked down, 
and all her comfortable theories collapsed. 
It turned out that she had a soul somewhere, 
w^hich she had forgotten all about, living, as 
if happily free from that incumbrance, in 
selfishness and folly that were counted by 
this newly-revealed standard little short of 
guilt. It was an unexpected discovery, and 
a most unpleasant one. That exclamation 
which had escaped her twice, at the thought 
of the great general sorrow, kept ringing in 
her ears like a warning and a reproach : 
Thank God^ I have no brothers ! " Who, 
then, were those men whom she had just 
seen going forth in voluntary self-devotion to 
fight for her and those who, like her, could not 
defend themselves ? Was there such a thing 
in Christendom as a woman or a man who 
had no brothers ? Yet Berthe had believed 
herself to be this impossibility ; she had been 
living up to it in utter forgetfulness of her 
brothers, ignoring them as a heathen might, 
or using them solely for her own selfish 



166 



" AWAKENING." 



purposes, to work for her and minister to 
her interests or her pleasures. 

Her eye wandered absently from one 
object to another till it fell npon a pale ivory 
figure on a velvet background fastened to the 
wall, and half shrouded by the curtains of the 
bed. 

I am young ; it is not too late ; 1 will 
begin life afresh/'' said Berthe, rising, and 
moving restlessly across the room. I will 
begin to-morrow; no, to-day — now." She 
went close up to the bed, and stood for a 
moment with clasped hands, her lips moving 
in quick, low utterances, and then fell upon 
her knees before the pale thorn-crowned head 
looking down upon her. 

They never knew it; but this conquest 
of a noble woman's life was perhaps the first 
victory won by the Breton soldiers who set 
out to battle that day. 



EXCELSIOR ! 



167 



VII. 

EXOELSIOE ! 

Grandes nouvelles ! Edition extraordinaire ! 
Quinze centimes ! 

Tlie newsvendor, a ragged little urchin 
who nearly collapsed under the weight of his 
editions extraordinaires^ was shouting these 
startling sentences at the top of his voice as 
I went out early in the morning. Two 
rheumatic old chiffonnieres immediately 
suspended their investigation of the dust 
heaps, and dropping their crooks cried out 
to know the news. Was it a victory, or a 
defeat, or something about the siege ? " But 
the urchin, as hard hearted as any editor, 
waved the momentous sheet majestically 
above his head, and answered, Quinze 
centimes ! " To the renewed entreaties of the 



168 



EXCELSIOR. 



clnffonnieres lie so far condescended as to 
assure them that it was well worth the 
monej, that they never inyested quinze 
centimes more profitable^ for the news was 
wonderful news ; but for less than quinze 
centimes they should not have it. I did not 
altogether believe either in the edition ex- 
traordinaire^ or in the wonderful news^ but 
the newspaper fever was upon me^ as upon 
everybody else^ so I produced the fifteen 
centimes^ and got the paper. Whereupon 
the two chiffbnnieres, taking it for granted 
that the community were to benefit by my 
extravagance, came up to me, and stood to 
hear the news, I read it aloud to them, as 
well as to a milk-boy who happened to be 
passing at the moment, and stood likewise 
to get his share of the fifteen centimes, and 
an imcommonly sympathetic audience they 
made. The news vfas none of the best. 
The Prussians were at Chalons, and might 
be on the march to Paris before another 
Aveek. 

That was MacMahon's plan from the 



EXCELSIOR ! 



169 



first/' observed the milk-boy, and if tlie 
Prussians fall into the trap, the game is up." 

The chiffonnieres, not being so well np 
in military tactics and technicalities, meekly 
begged to be enlightened as to the aim and 
nature of the trap in question, and the 
young politician was so kind as to explain 
to them that the Marshal had all along; been 
luring the Prussians on to Paris, which was 
to be their grave. Yalerien and the fortifi- 
cations would crunch them like flies ; not a 
man of them would go back alive ; the only 
fear was that ce coqiiin de Bismark would be 
too many guns for the Marshal, and force 
him to fight before Chalons, in which case, 
he declared, it was all up with the Marshal, 
and consequently with France." 

Having delivered himself of this masterly 
exposition of the case, the milk-boy swimghis 
cans, touched his cap to me, and having 
achieved the most preternaturally knowing 
wink I ever beheld, strode ofi* without wait- 
ing to see the efiect of his words on the two 
old wom^en. 



170 



EXCELSIOR ! 



They looked after him aghast. Had they 
been listening to a confidential agent of the 
war-office, or to an emissary of ce coqiiin de 
Bismarh himself — a spy, in fact ? 

" One onght to have one's mouth sewed 
up these times/' remarked the elder beldame, 
casting a half- suspicious glance at me as I 
folded my edition extraordinaire and con- 
signed it to my pocket; one never knows 
who one may be speaking to." 

This observation was too deep and too 
fearfully suggestive to admit of any com- 
mentary ; the only thing to be done in such 
a crisis was to take refuge in professional 
pursuits that offered no ground for suspicion, 
so, seizing their crooks, the chifibnnieres 
plunged once more into rubbish. 

A little further on, turning the corner of 
a street, I came on two gentlemen of my 
acquaintance standing in animated conver- 
sation. I stopped to ask what news ? IsTone, 
except that the horizon grew blacker from 
hour to hour. The despatches of the morn- 
ing were as bad as well could be. As to 



I 

EXCELSIOE ! 171 

pooh-pooliing tlie siege any longer it was 
sheer stupidity; one of them declared that 
for his part he wished it were already began ; 
j it was the last chance left of retrieving' the 

disasters of the campaign and crushing the 
remaining forces of the enemy. His com- 
panion indignantly scouted both the certainty 
and the desirability of the siege. The city, 
he said, was not to be trusted ; no great city 
was ; great wealth and patriotism never ran 
in the same harness ; there were hundreds 
of capitalists ready to open the gates to the 
enemy on their own terms. Look at the pro- 
prietors, for instance ! Did any one suppose 
there were fifty proprietors in Paris who 
would not cry Ga^nhdons before one week 
was out. 

Well," suggested the advocate of the 
siege, let the proprietors be taken down to 
their own cellars, and kept sitting on their 
money-bags, under lock and key, till the 
siege is over." 

"Then," retorted his companion, "you 
must lock up both the National Guard and 



172 



EXCELSIOE ! 



the Mobiles, for tliey are both, full of those 
money-loving traitors," 

This was not very reassuring. I kept 
repeating to myself that at a moment like 
this public opinion was sure to be an alarmist, 
that the wisest plan would be to stay afc 
home, and read no newspapers and consult 
nobody, but just wait steadily till events 
resolved themselves, as they always did 
sooner or later, into order, and then act as 
they should decide ; but it was no use. I 
went home in dire perplexity and began to 
wish myself in Timbuctoo, or the Fiji 
Islands, or anywhere out of the centre of 
civilization and the arts and sciences. 

Things went on in this way for another 
week, the tide advancing rapidly, but so 
gradually that it was difficult for those on 
shore to note its progress and be guided by 
it. No one would own to being frightened, 
but it was impossible to note the scared 
faces of the people as they stood in groups 
before every new affiche, setting forth either 
a fresh order from the Hotel de Ville, or 



EXCELSIOR ! 



173 



some dubious and disheartening despatcli 
from tlie seat of warj without feeling that 
the panic was upon them^ and that the com- 
plicated problems of the national struggle 
had narrowed to the one idea : dare we stay/ 
or must we fly ? When you met a friend in 
the street, the first, the sole, the supreme 
salutation was : ^^Do you believe in the siege? 
Are you going to stay?" The obduracy of 
the Parisians in refusing to believe in the 
siege up to the very last moment, was cer- 
tainly one of the strangest phases in the 
history of the siege itself. They were pos- 
sessed by a blind faith in the sacredness and 
inviolability of their capital, and they could 
not persuade themselves but that all Europe 
looked upon it with the same eyes, Prussia 
might perhaps, infatuated by a series of 
unparalleled successes, push audacity so far 
as to sit down before the gates of Paris, 
and bully her with big words and sham 
preparations, but beyond that she would 
never dare to go. Europe would not tolerate 
it ; all the civilized world would stand up 



174 



EXCELSIOR ! 



and cry hold! not out of sympathy for France, 
but out of pure selfishness, for Paris was 
not merely tlie capital of France, but of 
tlie world. So the walls were white with 
•proclamations, and avertissements and invita- 
tions to the boiiches inutiles to withdraw, and 
practical advice to the patriotic citizens 
whose proud duty it was soon to be to 
defend the city ; and the great exodus of 
boitclies inutiles poured out, and the much 
more dangerous stream of bouches inutiles 
from without poured in — the homeless popula- 
tion of the neighbouring villages driven out 
of their houses, that were not thrown down, 
but left to afford convenient shelter to the 
enemy — a sorry sight it was to see little 
menages trooping in, the husband trundling 
the few sticks of furniture on a handcart, 
with the inevitable household cat perched on 
the top of the promiscuous pile, while the 
wife carried a baby and a bundle, and a little 
one trotted by her side, holding the canary 
bird in its painted cage — all this went on, 
and still the real born Parisian said in his 



EXCELSIOE ! 



175 



heart of hearts, It will never be. Europe 
will never allow it ; Prussia will never 
dare/' etc. 

On the morning of the third of Septem- 
ber, I went out to make some purchases on 
the Boulevards. Passing by the Madeleine, 
which was draped in black, I saw a mournful 
procession coming down the steps ; I stood 
to let it pass, and meantime cast a glance 
round upon the crowd to see if there was 
a face in it that I knew. To my surprise, 
I saw Berthe in the midst of a group that 
had broken away from the mourners^ and 
was standing apart in the space inside the 
rails ; she was talking very emphatically, and 
whatever she was saying seemed to be of 
exciting interest to her hearers. When 
the cortege had nearly cleared away, I 
beckoned to her, and she ran out at once 
to me. 

''You are the very person I wanted to 
see," she exclaimed, clutching me by the 
arm in her vehement way ; ''I was going 
straight to your house. I have just been to 



176 



EXCELSIOE ! 



the Etat Major. I met Greneral Trocliu there ; 
he came down on account of some despatches 
that have just come in, and put them all in 
a state of terrible consternation. There is 
not a doubt of it novv^, the city will be 
blocked in ten days from this. I thought 
of you immediately, and I asked the General 
what you ought to do ; he said by all means 
to go, and within forty-eight hours ; after 
that the rails may be cut from one moment 
to another ; he was very emphatic about it, 
and said it would be mad imprudence of you 
to remain, as there is nothing to keep you 
here. There is a terrible time before us. Of 
course you will abide by this advice ?" 

I was too much taken aback to say what 
I would do. The news was so bewildering. 
I had never looked upon the siege as the 
impossible eventuality it had so long been 
considered, neither did I share the infatuation 
of the Parisians about the inviolability of 
Paris in the eyes of Europe; for the last 
fortnight I had come to believe that the 
investment at least was now only a question 



AWAKENING." 



177 



of time, yet I was as much startled by this 
cool, official announcement of it, as if the 
thing had never been seriously mentioned 
before. 

"I don't know what I will do," I said; 
if one had nerves equal to it, it would be 
the most fearfully interesting experience to 
go through." 

"No doubt," assented Berthe, "but it will 
be an experience that will try the strongest 
nerves, and unless one had duties to keep 
one here, I think, as the General says, it 
would be mad imprudence to remain." 

" You mean to leave, of course ?" I said. 

" No, I mean to stay. I think I can trust 
my nerves ; besides, as a Frenchwoman, I 
have a duty to perform. I must take my 
share of the common danger : it would be 
cowardly of me to fly ; but with you it is 
different. I don't think you would be justi- 
fied in remaining simply out of curiosity, for 
the excitement of the thing. Only whatever 
you do, you must decide at once. Of course 
you hav-e your passport ?" 

12 



178 



AWAKENING." 



" N"o, I had not gone tliat far in believing 
in tlie siege." 

That was foolish/' said Berthe ; " every 
foreigner we know has^ I am certain, got 
theirs." 

Well, I will go for mine now," I said. 
Come with me, and let us talk it all over. 
Are you on foot ? " 

JSTo, but I will be glad of the walk ; I 
will send away the brougham." 

She did so, and we went on together. 

''It is like death," I said, ^'no matter 
how long one is expecting it, it comes like 
a blow at the last, I can hardly realize now 
that the siege is actually at hand. Why, it 
was only the other day we were listening to 
all those people jesting about it all ! " 

'' It was a sorry jest," replied Berthe ; 
'' but that is always the way with us French : 
we look on life as a jjlaisanterie from begin- 
ning to end. I beheve if a Frenchman could 
speak in his coflBn he would jest." 

"And you really mean to stay, Berthe ?" 

'' I do. I shall be of some use, I hope. 



"awakening.'' 



179 



At any rate I shall try my best ; but we can 
talk of tliat presently. First, about you. 
Have you made up your mind ? " 

"I dont know/' I said; "I feel be- 
wildered. I long to stay, and yet I dread it. 
It is not tlie possible horrors of the siege 
that frighten me ; at least, I think not : it is 
the fear of being taken up as a spy." 

She burst out into one of her loud, merry 
laughs. " What a ridiculous idea ! Why on 
earth should you, of all people, be taken for a 
spy ? " 

There is no why or wherefore in the 
case," I said, " and that is just the alarming 
part of it. The people are simply mad on the 
point ; they have barked themselves rabid, 
and are ready to bite every one that comes 
in their way. Twice this morning, on my 
way into town, I heard a hue and cry raised 
somewhere near, and when I asked what was 
the matter, a ^ mad dog or a house on fire ?' 
the answer was, ^ Oh, no, it's an esjpion they've 
started, and he's giving them chase ! ' One 
man .said to me half in jest, and half in 



180 



AWAKENING." 



earnest : 4 Madame would do well to liide 
her fair hair under a wig ; it's not prudent to 
go about in fair hair these times/ I own it 
made me feel a little uncomfortable. " 

Well it is not very comforting for me," 
said Berthe, laughing ; my hair is blortd 
enough to excite suspicion." 

Oh, your nationality is written on your 
face," I said; there is no fear of your ever 
being mistaken for anything but a french- 
woman." 

On arriving at the Embassy we found a 
crowd of British subjects waiting for their 
passports, and considerably surprised at being 
kept waiting, and expressing their surprise 
in no measured terms. Surely they paid 
dear enough for the maintenance of their 
Embassies to be entitled to prompt and 
proper attendance when once in a way they 
called on their representative for a service of 
this kind ? The attaches Vv^ere so over- 
worked, they could really not attend to 
everybody at once." Then why were there 
not extra attaches, any number of attaches 



" AWAKENING." 



181 



put on for tlie extra press of work ? and so 
on. Some nervous old couples were anxious 
to have the benefit of his Excellency s personal 
opinion as to the prudence of leaving their 
plate-chest behind them ; and if he thought 
there was a risk in so doing, would he be so 
kind as to suggest the safest and most 
economical way of conveying it to London ; 
and how about the duty, which was very 
heavy in case they had to bring it back, 
being foreign plate ? Also, whether it was 
quite prudent to leave their money in the 
Bank of France and other French securities, 
or whether it would be more advisable to 
vnthdraw it at once, even at a loss. Also, 
whether it would be a wise precaution to 
hang the Union Jack out of their windows — 
those who left furniture behind them- — or 
whether the present state of feeling between 
England and France was likely to render 
such a proceeding rather dangerous than 
otherwise ; it was not for outsiders to know 
how things stood between the two countries, 
so as to be able to guide their course in the 



* 



182 "awakening." 

present crisis, but his Excellency being a 
diplomatist was sure to be well informed on 
these matters, and they would rely implicitly 
on his judgment and advice. 

Berthe and I were so highly entertained 
by the naif egotism and infantine stupidity 
displayed by these various specimens of 
British human nature, that we did not find 
it in our hearts to grumble at being kept 
nearly two hours waiting. 

On reaching the Eond Point of the Champs 
Elysees, our curiosity was attracted by a 
silent, scared-looking crowd, collected on the 
trottoir, in front of the hotel Meyerbeer. 
The persiennes of the house were closed, as 
if there were a death within, and a few ser- 
gents-de-ville v/ere standing at intervals with 
crossed arms, staring up at the windows. 
The owner of the hotel had been arrested as 
a spy the night before, on the strength of 
some foohsh words which had escaped him 
about the possible entry of the Germans into 
Paris ; the arrest had made a great noise in * 
the neighbourhood, but Berthe and I had not 



AWAKENING.'' 



183 



heard of it, so, prompted by curiosity, I asked 
one of the sergents what was the matter, if 
anything had happened ? The man turned 
round, and, without uncrossing his arms, 
bent two piercing black eyes on me — piercing 
is not a figure of speech : they stabbed me 
through hke a pair of blades — ^and after 
taking a dehberate view of my person from 
head to foot, he growled out : — 

Ouiy il y a eu quelque chose. II y a eii un 
espion /" 

There was something so diabolical in 
the tone of his voice and his expression that 
it terrified me, and I suppose my terror 
got into my face and gave it a guilty 
hue, for another sergent-de-ville, who 
had turned round on hearing his colleague 
speak, strode up to me and said nothing, 
but drove another pair of eyes through 
me with fierce suspicion. The crowd at- 
tracted by the incident veered round and 
stared at me, and I felt as if I had that 
morning posted a despatch to Bismark, or 
Bismark's master, betraying every secret 



184 



"awakening." 



that could facilitate the rain of France and 
the triumph of Germany, Despair, however, 
came to my rescue. I put a bold face on it, 
and said with extraordinary pluck and cool- 
ness : — 

" But they have caught him ? " 

" Yes, they have caught him, and they 
will keep him ! " 

"Ah! it is well!" I observed; and in 
abject dread of being done equally well by, 
and pounced upon there and then, I walked 
leisurely away. 

When we had got to a safe distance, I 
ventured to look at Berthe. She was as 
white as a sheet, and if I looked half as guilty, 
it is nothing short of a miracle that we were 
not both seized on the spot and marched off to 
the Prefecture de Police. 

" Let this be a lesson to us to ask no 
more questions in the street,'' she said, when 
we were quite out of ear-shot of the sergents- 
de-ville; "indeed the safest way would be 
not to speak at all, especially in a foreign 
language, for whatever is unintelligible just 



AWAKENING." 



185 



now is German, and to be German is to be a 

spy." 

After this we walked on in silence. It 
was quite clear Berthe was no longer disposed 
to treat my apprehensions about the spy 
fever as chimerical, or matter for laughter. 
Puerile as tfhe above incident was, I believe 
it put an end to my hesitation and determined 
me to leave Paris within the forty-eight hours, 
as the governor of the city had suggested. 

Berthe had not realized it as much as I 
had ; but the spy fever had spread so alarm- 
ingly within the last few days, that from- 
• being at first a frequently-recurring panic, it 
was now an insane idee fixe. You saw sus- 
picion and fear written on the faces of the 
people as you went along. They walked in 
twos and threes without speaking, glancing 
timidly on every side, and trying to carry it 
off with an air of indifference or preoccupa- 
tion. Every one was in mortal fear of being 
pointed at and hooted at, and carried off to 
the nearest violon. No nationality was a 
safeguard. Even British subjects were liable 



186 



awakening/' 



to fall a victim to the popular mania, and 
some few of tliem did. The event was of 
course published, and the account they gave 
of the entertainment prepared for casual 
visitors at the expense of the Government 
was anything but enticing : a small salle 
crammed full of prisoners of every social and 
political hue, all huddled together pele-mele 
without a chair to sit on or air to breathe. 
Those who were lucky enough to be let out 
after a short term of this promiscuous hospi- 
tality were warmly congratulated by their 
* friends and forthwith retired into private life 
without further eclat. Some English guests* 
of the Prefecture were simple enough, how- 
ever, to enter an official protest against the 
proceedings, and these were politely reminded 
that the gates of the city were still open, and 
trains ready to convey them to places of more 
agreeable manners, where the sacred person 
of a British subject ran no risk of being mis- 
taken for a common mortal, but that while 
they chose to remain within the gates they 
must take the consequences. And this was, 



"awakening/' 



187 



after all, the best answer tlie authorities 
could make, and it behoved all reasonable 
Britisli subjects to abide by it. 

I parted from Berthe at tlie corner of her 
own street, and went home to pack up and 
be ready to start by the twelve o'clock train 
next day. 

On my way to the station I stopped to 
take leave of her. It was near eleven. Con- 
trary to my expectations, I found her up and 
dressed, instead of lolling en deshabille on 
her^ chaise longue. But this was not the 
only surprise awaiting me. The whole ap- 
pearance of the house was changed. Portieres 
and curtains were done away with, the two 
salons were emptied of their furniture, and 
four iron beds placed in the large one, and 
two in the small one. A young woman was 
busy cutting out bandages from a pile of 
linen in a basket beside her in Berthe's 
room, that soft. Sybarite room, so unused to 
such company and such occupation ; her face 
was concealed by a broad-frilled Vendeen 
cap, but on hearing us enter she turned 



188 



AWAKENING." 



round, -and I recognized the bride-widow of 
tlie Breton volunteer. 

AYe are going to w^ork very hard to- 
gether/' said Berthe, putting her hand on 
the girl's shoulder. Jeannette is going to 
teach me how to make poultices, and dress 
wounds, and all sorts of useful things ; she is 
quite an adept in service, it seems ; so I am in 
hopes our little ambulance will be nicely 
managed, and comfortable for the dear 
soldiers." 

Jeannette' s eyes filled with tears, and she 
took Berthe's hand and kissed it. Just at 
this moment Francois came in to say that 
there were two soeurs de charite who wanted 
to speak to madame. Berthe and Jeannette 
w^ent out to meet them, and as they left the 
room, Clarisse came in through the dressing- 
room. As soon as she caught sight of me 
she threw up her arms and looked all round 
her with blank despair in her face. 

''The world is upside down," she said, 
everything is going topsy-turvy; what 
between the war, and the siege, and the rest 



AWAKENING." 



189 



of it, one doesn't know what to expect next ; 
but of all tlie queer things going, the queerest 
is what is happening in this house. To think 
of the salon of la Comtesse being turned into 
a hospital, and that I should stay to see it ! 
Madame does well to go away ; people are all 
going crazy in this country, and they say it's 
catching." 

So it is, Clarisse," I replied; and the 
best thing I can wish you is that you may 
catch it too.'' 

Berthe wanted to come with me to the 
station, but I would not allow it, I preferred 
to carry away my last impression of her as 
I saw her now. She was dressed in a plain 
dark silk, with a white apron before her, and 
a soft cambric handkerchief tied loose round 
her head, but the quaint, half nun-like dress 
seemed to me more becoming to her than the 
most artistic of M. Grandhomme's combina» 
tions. I watched her flitting from room to 
room, with a duster in her hand, changing 
the chairs and tables, and working as deftly 
as an accomplished housemaid, her face 



190 



" AWAKENING." 



flushed with the exercise^ and radiant with 
a new found joy, and I thought I had never 
seen her look so beautiful. So we parted in 
that blue chamber, which was, henceforth, to 
have a new memory of its own to both of us. 

Before I had started from my own house 
the news of the disaster of Sedan had come 
in, and spread like wildfire. All that I had 
previously witnessed of popular excitement 
was cold and tame compared with what I 
now beheld. The city as I drove through it 
to the gare du Nord was like a galvanized 
nightmare, electrifying, and electrified into 
demoniacal hubbub. Rage and despair were 
riding the whirlwind, with suspicion tied hke 
a bandage on their eyes ; the cry of treason I 
out-topped all other cries, and rose higher 
than curses or lamentations ; men were deaf 
and blind to all other explanation: it was 
treason to gainsay treason. 

Had there at that moment been found a 
voice loud enough to speak to the hurricane, 
and bid the winds be still and hearken, and 
gather iip those shrill, shrieking tongues into 



"awakening." 



191 



one strong unit of harmony and power that 
would have reached to the ends of France 
and spoken reason, what might not have 
come of it, what might not have been done 
and saved ? But it was not to be. No- 
thing came of the discord but discord. 
The strong hand that might even then 
have welded those suicidal elements— hate, 
and fury, and suspicion — into a bond of 
vigorous and salutary action, was not forth- 
coming ; the strife was to go on, and on, and 
on to the bitter end, until fair France was 
drenched in her own blood, her energies 
spent, her youth and chivalry laid low in 
bpotless butchery. 

The blocks that impeded our progress in 
every street made it a difficult matter to reach 
the station. When we eventually did get there, 
we were a quarter of an hour behind our time. 
But, as it happened, this was of no conse- 
quence ; we had to 'wait another hour before 
the train started. Meantime, the confusion 
was indescribable. Several waggons full of 
wounded had arrived by the last train, and a 



192 



AWAKENING." 



regiment of the line was waiting to start by 
the next. The Place was filled with soldiers. 
Some were lying at full length fast asleep under 
the hot noon sun ; others were smoking and 
chatting near their arms that were stacked 
here and there ; some of the poor fellows had 
been out beforOj and were only just recovered 
from their wounds : they looked wan and pale. 
Women were clinging to them, weeping and 
lamenting. Inside the station travellers were 
rushing about frantically from bureau to 
bureau ; every now and then, in despair at 
ever getting through the crowd that hedged 
in every wicket, a traveller would buttonhole 
some, unlucky underling with a band on his 
hat and adjure him to help him to a ticket, 
and when the underling protested that such 
a service was not ^^in his attributions," the 
traveller would belabour him with hard words, 
and make another charge at the bureaux. 

At last we were oflF. It was a voyage a 
sensation such as I hope never again to make. 
The line v/as encumbered with trains full of 
wounded coming and troops going, and our 



AWAKENING." 



193 



pace was regulated with a view to avoid 
running into those ahead, and escape being 
run into by those behind. Now we darted off 
at terrific speed, the train wrigghng off and on 
the rails like a snake flying for its life ; then 
we pulled up and crawled on at almost a foot 
pace for a little while ; then off* we flew again 
with the speed of a telegraph. Trains flashed 
past us every now and then with a roar and a 
shriek, and soldiers, with their heads bound 
up and their arms in slings, sang out snatches 
of war-songs, and we cheered and waved 
hands and handkerchiefs in return. We had 
started an hour and a quarter behind our 
time, and we arrived three hours after we 
were due. For two hours before we reached 
Boulogne the danger-lights were flaring 
ahead, red and lurid in the darkness, and it 
was with something like the sensation of 
being rescued from a house on fire that we 
set foot on the debarcadere. 

Once in safety I was able to look back 
more calmly on the history of the past fort- 
night. It seemed to me that I had been 



194 



AWAKENING." 



standing on a rock watching the tide roll in, 
*^tlie cruel, crawling" tide, rising gradually 
higher and higher, nearer and nearer to my 
stand-point, till I felt the cold touch of the 
water on my feet, and then leaped ashore. 

And Berthe ? She stood out, a bright 
star transfiguring the gloom and chaos of the 
retrospect. The change I had witnessed in 
her seemed like the pledge and herald of 
other changes — wider, deeper, universal. I 
had ceased to wonder at the choice she had 
made. The more I thought of it, the more I 
felt that it was worthy of her, as she of it. 
I could form but one wish for her now ; that 
she might be strong to persevere unto the 
end. The course she had chosen was the 
noblest, the only true one for a Frenchwoman 
while France was wrestling in this gigantic 
duel, suffering and bleeding it might be to 
death. However the strife ended, so long as 
the war-cry and the battle-psalm were clanging 
around, it was not meet for the women of 
France to sit idly in luxurious ease and watch 
the struggle as a game that claimed nothing 



" AWAKENING." 



195 



more than excited sympathy. It claims some- 
thing more than this from all of us. Citizens 
or alhes, far or near, we may none of us 
stand aloof in such a crisis, or take refuge in 
neutrality. In the brotherhood of Christen- 
dom, neutrality is but another word for 
desertion. We have each of us our appointed 
post in the battle, and if we desert it we are 
renegades and traitors. We must all fight 
somehow. Not of necessity with iron and 
steel ; but we must fight. Moses was no 
neutral when, from the mountain, he, with 
uplifted arms, watched the conflict in the 
valley below. So it must be with all of us. 
We must fight somehow. We may never 
abide in selfish peace or isolated security 
while our brethren are at war. Whithersoever 
the battle goes, to victory or surrender, to 
glory or humiliation, we must bear our part 
in it, and let our hearts go on fighting faith- 
fully to the end. We must love the com- 
batants through good and evil alike ; through 
the smoke and din we must discern every 
ennobling incident of the struggle, such as 



196 



" AWAKENING." 



there abound on every battle field, in every 
land ; seeing all tilings in their true propor- 
tions, shutting our hearts inexorably to 
despair, making them wide to endless sym- 
pathy with the good, to inexhaustible pity for 
the wicked. The smoke must not blind us ; 
the crash and the roar must not deafen us ; 
through the agony of souls, despair, and hate 
and sin, we must have our vision clear and 
strong to recognize the loveliness of virtue, 
the divine beauty of sacrifice, the infinite 
possibilities of repentance, the joy of the 
conquerors, the sweetness of the kiss of 
peace. Loving all love ; hating all hate. We 
must see angels outnumbering fiends in in- 
calculable degree ; light triumphing over 
darkness, and the breath of purity healing the 
blue corruption of the world. 



FINIS. 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 

A SKETCH AFTEE THE BLOCUS. 



It was just five montlis since I had left it, tlie 
bright, proud Babylon, beautiful, and bold, 
and wicked, clothed in scarlet, and feasting 
sumptuously. King Chanticleer, strutting on 
the Boulevards, was crowing loudly, and the 
myriad tribe of the coq Gaulois, strutting 
up and down the city, crowed loud and shrill 
in responsive chorus — petits creves^ and ])etits 
moitchards, and petits gamins^ and all that 
was in that grand, foolish cityful of 

humanity. Bedlam was abroad, singing, and 
crowing, and barking itself rabid, and scaring 
away from Babylon all that was not Bedlam. 
But there were many in Babylon who were 



198 MADEMOISELLE ADBIENNE. 



not afraid of Bedlam, who believed that tlie 
crowing would by and by translate itself into 
action, into those deeds of desperate daring 
which none but madmen can accomplish, 
that when the bugle sounded, these bragging, 
swaggering maniacs would shoulder the 
musket, and, rushing to the fore, save France, 
or die for her. No one saved her, but many 
did rush to the fore, and die for her. They 
were not lunatics though, at least not many 
of them. The lunatics showed, as they have 
often done before, that there was method in 
their madness. They cheered on the sane, 
phlegmatic brethren to death and glory, while 
they stayed prudently at home to keep up the 
spirits of the capital ; they were the spirit 
and soul of the defence, the others were but 
the bone and muscle of it. What is a body 
without a soul, the frail arm of the flesh 
without the nerve and go and the spirit? 
Pshaw ! If it were not for the crowing of 
King Chanticleer, there would have been no 
siege at all ; the whole concern would have 
collapsed in itis cradle. 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 199 



The story of the Blocus has yet to be 
written. Of its outward and visible story^ 
many volumes, scores of volumes, good and 
bad, true and false, have already been written. 
But the inward history, the arcana of the 
defence, the exposition of that huge, blunder- 
ing machine, that with its springs and levers, 
and wheels within wheels, snapped and broke 
and collapsed in the driver's hand, — all this 
is still untold. The great Pourquoi ? is still 
unanswered. History will solve the riddle 
some day, no doubt, as it solves most riddles ; 
but before that time comes, other grander 
problems of mightier import to us will 
likewise have been solved, and we shall 
care but little for the true story of the 
Blocus. 

"Yes, monsieur/^ said my concierge, 
when we met and talked over the events 
which had passed since the first of Sep- 
tember, when I fled, leaving my goods and 
chattels to her care and the tender mercies of 
the Prussians and the Reds, " yes, mon- 
siem^^ it is surprising, but one doesn't hear 



200 MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 



of anybody's having died of cold, thougli the 
winter was so terrible, and fuel so scarce. 
It ran short almost from the beginning. We 
had nothing but green sticks that couldn't be 
persuaded to burn, do our best. I used 
to sit shivering in my bed, while the peUots 
tried to warm themselves, skipping under the 
forte'Cochere^ running up and down the stairs 
till their little legs were dead beat. Oh, 
monsieur^ I shall remember this war to my 
dying day." 

'^Did many die from starvation?" I 
asked — " many in this neighbourhood whom 
you knew ? " 

Not one, monsieur ! not one of actual 
hunger, though it's my belief that plenty of 
folks died of poison. The bread we ate was 
worse than no bread. Such an abomination 
made out of clay and bran, and oats and 
hay, and Lord knows what besides ! Why, 
monsieur^ a chiffonnier's dog wouldn't have 
touched it in Christian times. How it kept 
body and soul together for any of us, is 
more than I can understand," 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 201 



^^And yet npbody died of want?" I 
repeated. 

'^Not that I heard of, monsieur ^ unless 
you count Pere Jacques as dead from star- 
vation. He disappeared one morning, soon 
after lie sold Mademoiselle Adrienne, and 
nobody ever knew what became of him. 
They said in the neighbourhood that he went 
over to the Prussians ; but they said that 
of better men than Pere Jacques; and, besides, 
what would the Prussians do with a poor old 
tuque like Pere Jacques, I ask it of mon'" 
sieur ? " 

Before I could say that I fully agreed 
with her, we were both startled by a sudden 
uproar in the street round the corner. We 
rushed out simultaneously from the porte- 
cochere^ where we were holding our confabu- 
lation, to see what was the matter. A crowd 
was collected in the middle of the Rue 
Billault, and was vociferously cheering some- 
body or something. As a matter of course, 
the assembly beiDg French, there were 
counter-cheers ; hisses and cries of'^Benegat / 



202 MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 



Vendu aux Prussiens I qtc.j intermingled 
with more friendly exclamations. 

Bon Dien, it is not finished tlien ! Is the 
war going to begin again ! Are we making 
a revolution? cried my concierge^ throwing 
up her hands, and then wringing them in 
despair ; will the petiots never again eat 
their panade and build their little mud-pies 
in peace ! Oh, what a country ! Monsieur, 
monsieur, you are happy not to be a French- 
man ! 

Without at all demurring to this last 
proposition, I suggested that before giving 
up France as utterly lost, we would do well 
to see what the row was about, if row there 
were, for as the crowd grew, the cheering 
rose distinctly predominant above the hissing. 
Already reassured, I advanced towards the 
centre of disturbance, my concierge follow- 
ing, and, for greater security, keeping a 
tight grip of my coat-tails. 

Vive Mademoiselle Adrienne ! Bonne la 
patte. Mademoiselle Adrienne ! Vive le Pere 
Jacques These cries, capped by peals of 



M-ADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



203 



laughter, half- drowned in the sonorous bray- 
ing of a donkey, reverberated down the 
street, and deafened us as we drew near. 
With a shout of laughter, my concierge 
dropped my coat, and clapped her hands in 
delight. 

^^How then!" she cried; "she is not 
dead ! He did not eat her ! He did not sell 
her ! Vive le Pere Jacques ! Vive Mademoiselle 
Adrienne ! " 

Those of my readers who have lived any 
time in the quarter of the Champs Blysees, 
will recognize Mademoiselle Adrienne as an 
old friend, and rejoice to learn that, thanks 
to the devotion and intelligence of Pere 
Jacques, she did not share the fate of most 
of her asinine sisterhood, but has actually 
gone through the horrors of the siege of 
Paris, and lived to tell the tale. Those who 
have not the pleasure of her acquaintance 
will perhaps be glad to make it, and learn 
something of so remarkable a personage. 

For years — I am afraid to say how many, 
but ten is certainly within the mark — Pere 



204 MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNJ). 



Jacques and his donkey have been familiar ob- 
jects in the Rue Billaulfc and the Rue de Berri, 
and that part of the Faubourg St. Honore 
which includes those streets. Why Pere 
Jacques christened his ass Mademoiselle 
Adrienne is to this day a mystery. Some 
say it was out of vengeance against a certain 
blue-eyed Adrienne who won his heart and 
jilted it ; others say out of love for a faithful 
Adrienne who broke his heart by dying. But 
this is pure conjecture ; Pere Jacques himself 
remains impenetrable on the subject. When 
once questioned by a curious, impertinent 
man, he declined to explain himself further 
than by remarking : — " Ghacun avait son 
idee^ et mon idee a moi c^est Mademoiselle 
Adrienne;^' and having said this much he 
took a lump of sugar from his pocket and 
presented it affectionately to his idee^ who 
crunched it with evident satisfaction, and 
acknowledged the attention by an expressive 
bray. 

VoyonSj Mademoiselle Adrienne! Gal- 
mons nous! Galmons nous, ma fille ! " The 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



205 



braying rose liigLer and higher. Wilt thou 
be silent ! TJpla^ Mademoiselle Adrienne ! 
Ah^ lesfemmes^ lesfemmes! Toujours bavardes! 
La-a-a-a Mademoiselle Adrienne ! " 

This was the usual style of conversation 
between the two. Pere Jacques presented 
lumps of sugar, which were gratefully 
crunched and acknowledged by a bray, or 
more properly a series of brays in crescendo, 
such as no other donkey in France or J^ayarre 
could send forth ; while the performance 
lasted Pere Jacques kept up a running jS.re of 
remonstrance : 

Voyons, Mademoiselle Adrienne ! Sa- 
pristi. Wilt thou be still ? A-t-on jamais vii ! 
Saperlotte^ veux-tu-en fini-i-i-i-ir /" 

It was an old novelty in the quarter, yet 
it never lost its savour ; as soon as Pere 
Jacques and his cart, full of oranges or cauli- 
flowers as the case might be, were seen or 
heard at the other end of the street, the 
gamins left off marbles and pitch-and-toss to 
bully and chaff the charioteer, and greet his 
idee with a jocular ^^Bonjour, Mademoiselle 



206 MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 



Adrienne !" while tradespeople looked up 
from weights and measures and laughed as 
the pair went hj. 

When provisions began to run short during 
the Blocus, Pere Jacques grew uneasy, not for 
himself but for Mademoiselle Adrienne. Hard- 
hearted cynics advised him to fatten her up 
for the market; ass-flesh was delicate and 
rarer than horse-flesh, and fetched six francs 
a pound ; it was no small matter to turn six 
francs in those famine times, when there were 
no apples, nor cauliflowers, nor ought else to 
trundle. Mademoiselle Adrienne was a burden 
now instead of a help to her master; the 
little cart stood in a corner ; it was breaking 
his heart to see her growing thin for want of 
rations, and to watch her spirits drooping for 
lack of exercise and lumps of sugar. For 
more than a fortnight Pere Jacques deprived 
himself of a morsel of the favourite dainty, 
and doled out his last demi-kilog to her with 
miserly economy, hoping always that the 
gates would be opened before she came to 
the last lump. 



MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 207 



Come, my daughter!" Pere Jacques 
would say, as slie munclied a bit lialf the 
usual size of the now precious dainty, cheer 
up, ma houriquette! Be reasonable, Made- 
moiselle Adrienne, be reasonable, and bear 
thy trials like an ass, patiently and bravely ; 
not like a man, grumbling and desponding. 
Saperlotte, Mademoiselle Adrienne ! If it 
were not for thee I should be out on the 
ramparts, and send those rascals to the right- 
abouts myself. The cold-blooded ruffians ! 
They are not content with killing and . starv- 
ing our soldiers and citizens, but they must 
rob thee of thy bit of sugar, my pretty 
one ! Mille tonnerres I If I had their necks 
under my arm for but the twinkling of an 
eye!" 

Entering into the feelings of her master, 
Mademoiselle Adrienne would bellow forth 
an agonized bray ; and thus comforting one 
another, the pair bore on through those days. 
But by-and-by came the days of eating mice 
and rats, and bread that any respectable dog 
would have turned up his nose at a mouth 



208 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



ago. Pere Jacques shook in Ms wooden 
shoes. He dared not show himself abroad 
with Mademoiselle Adrienne, and not only 
that^ but he lived in Chronic terror of a raid 
being made on her at home. The mis- 
chievous urchins who had amused themselves 
at the expense of his paternal feelings in days 
of comparative plenty, gave him no rest now 
that the wolf was at the door. Eequisitions 
were being made in private houses to see 
that no stores were hoarded up while the 
people outside were famishing. One rich 
family, who had prudently bought a couple of 
cows at the beginning of the Blocus, after 
vainly' endeavouring to keep the fact a secret, 
and surrounding the precious beasts with as 
much care and mystery as ever Egyptian 
worshippers bestowed on the sacred Isis, were 
forced to give them up to the commonwealth. 
This incident made a great sensation in the 
quarter. Pere Jacques was among the first 
to hear of it, and the gamins improved the 
opportunity by informing him that the Re- 
public had issued a decree whereby every ass 



MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 



209 



in the city was to be seized next day, every 
one that could speak, they added facetiously, 
and there was to be a general slaughter of 
them — a massacre des innocentSythe little brutes 
called it, at the shambles of the Rue Valois. 
The fact of the Rue Valois being chosen AYas 
a small mercy for which they bid Pere Jacques 
be duly thankful ; as it was close at hand he 
might accompany Mademoiselle Adrienne to 
the scene of execution, give her a parting em- 
brace, and hear her last bray of adieu. 

At this cynical climax, Pere Jacques leaped 
from his stool, and seizing his stick, set to 
vigorously laying about the heads and backs 
of his torturers, who took to their heels, 
yelling like frightened guinea-pigs, while 
Mademoiselle Adrienne, ruminating in a 
corner, opened a volley of indignant brays 
on the fugitives. 

All that night Pere Jacques lay awake in 

terror. Every whistle of the wind, every 

creak in the door, every stir and sound set 

his heart thumping violently against his 

ribs ; every moment he was expecting the 

u 



210 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



dreaded domiciliary visit. What was lie to 
do ? Where could he hide ? How could he 
cheat the brigands, and save Mademoiselle 
Adrienne ? The night wore out, and the 
dawn broke, and the raid was still unaccom- 
plished. As soon as it was light Pere Jacques 
rose and dressed himself, and sat down on 
his three-legged stool beside Mademoiselle 
Adrienne to ponder. Since her life had been 
in jeopardy he had removed her from her out- 
house in the court to his own den on the. 
ground-floor close by. 

^'What dost thou advise, Mademoiselle 
Adrienne ? " murmured the distraught old 
man, soliloquising aloud. He would often 
apostrophize his idee half unconsciously in 
this way when exercised painfully on any 
matter. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. 
He would go to Mere Richard. Mere Richard 
lived in a neighbouring court surrounded by 
a numerous family of birds of many species 
— canaries, bullfinches, and linnets. She had 
often proposed to Pere Jacques to adopt 
a little songster by way of cheering his 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 211 

lonely hours, and had once offered him 
a young German canary of her own bring- 
ing up. 

It's as good as a baby for tricks/' she 
declared, and nothing so dear to keep." 

But Pere Jacques had gratefully declined. 
He would not be allured from his allegiance 
to Mademoiselle Adrienne. She is company 
enough for me," he said, and it might hurt 
her feelings if I took up with a bird noY\r ; 
thanks to you, all the same. Mere Richard." 

To-day, as he neared the house, he looked 
in vain for the red and green cages that used 
to hang in the sunshine on either side of Mere 
Eichard's windows. The birds were gone. 
Where ? P^re Jacques' prophetic soul an- 
swered with a thrill of horror. With a heavy 
heart and faltering step he mounted the dark 
little stair, that was wont to be made merry 
by the sound of chirping from the tidy room 
an troisieme. He did not dare to ask any 
questions; but, casting his eyes round the 
room, he beheld the empty cages ranged in a 
row behind the door. They told their own tale. 



212 MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 

But Mere Eichard liad a donkey. This 
was the bond between her and Pere Jacques. 
There was no comparison to be tolerated for 
a moment between hers and his : still it was 
a bond ; and now their positions were iden- 
tical, they were both in danger of death. 
Mere Richard was a woman wise in her gene- 
ration, she could help him in his difficulty 
perhaps ; or, if not, she would at any rate 
sympathize with him. To his great sur- 
prise, Mhve Richard had heard nothing of 
the threatened raid on donkeys; he broke 
the news to her as delicately as he could, 
but she listened smilingly incredulous. Pere 
Jacques was forced to enter into details and 
explain to her exactly how the case stood. 
When at last she took it in, instead of 
breaking into tears and lamentations, the old 
woman burst into a chuckling laugh. 

Pas xwssible ! Bouriquette good to be 
eaten, and the Republic wanting to buy her, 
and pay me six francs a pound for her ! 
Mon ami, such news is too good to be true 
This was the wicked old harpagon's comment. 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 213 



Pere Jacques could not contain his indig- 
nation. He vowed that, for his own part, 
rather than let Mademoiselle Adrienne fall 
into the hands of the cannibals, he would 
destroy her with his own hand ; he would 
kill any man in the Republic,, from Trochu to 
Gambetta, who dared to lay a finger on her ; 
ay, that he would, if he were to swing for it 
the next hour ! 

Pere Jacques, you qre a fool," observed 
Mere Richard, helping herself to a pinch of 
snuff; ^^you put me in mind of a story my 
ofood man used to tell of two friends of his 
that he met on their way to be hanged : one 
of them was taking it easy, and walked on 
quietly, holding his peace ; but the other did 
not like it at all, and kept howling and whim- 
pering and making a row. At last his com- 
rade lost patience, and turning round on him, 
he cried, ' Eh ! grand betcU^ si tu nen veux 
pas, nen degonte pas les autres ! ' Mere 
Richard nodded, and took another pinch. 

Pere Jacques saw the point of the 
story, and taking the hint, stood up to go. 



214 



MADEMOISELLE ADRIE^s^NE. 



As he was leaving the room he looked 
back. 

What did you do with the birds ?" he 
demanded, sternly. 

Sold fom^ of 'em for three francs a-piece/' 
was the old woman's reply in a tone of tri- 
umph, and cooked the rest and ate 'em, 
and uncommonly good they were." 

Monster!" groaned Pere Jacques, and 
clenching his fist at her, he hurried down the 
stairs. 

All that day he and Mademoiselle Adri- 
enne stayed at home with their door and 
window bolted and barred ; but night came, 
and the domiciliary visit was still a threat. 
Next day, however, the little door stood open 
as usual, and Pere Jacques was to be seen 
hammering away at the dilapidated legs of a 
table that he was mending for a neighbour at 
the rate of twenty-five centimes a leg; but 
Mademoiselle Adrienne was not there. Had 
Pere Jacques put an end to his agony by 
killing her as he had threatened, and so 
rescued her from the ignoble fate of the 



MADEMOISELLE ADKIENNE. 215 

shambles? or, had he, daunted by the 
phantom, Hunger, that now stared at him 
with its pale spectral eyes from the near 
background, yielded to the old man's love of 
life, and sold his friend to prolong it, and 
escape from a ghastly death himself? Most 
people believed the latter conjecture, but 
nobody knew for certain. 

When Mademoiselle Adrienne's name was 
mentioned, Pere Jacques would frown, and 
show unmistakable signs of displeasure. If 
the subject was pressed, he would seize his 
stick, and, making a moulinet over his head 
with it, prepare an expletive which the 
boldest never waited to receive. 

One day he was overheard crying bitterly 
in his now solitary home, and muttering to 
himself between the sobs, Ma paiivre fil e ! 
Mademoiselle Adrienne ! Je te sidvrai hien- 
fM. Ally les sceleratSy les hrigands^ les mon- 
stresF^ This was held to be conclusive. 
The monsters could only be the Shylocks of 
the shambles who had tempted him with 
blood -money for Mademoiselle Adrienne. 



216 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



Curiosity being thus far appeased^ people 
ceased to worry Pere Jacques— the lonely 
old man became an object of pity to every 
body, even to the gamins; when they met 
him now they touched their caps, with, 
Bon-jour^ Pere Jacques and spared him 
the jeer which had been their customary 
salutation of late : '^^ Mademoiselle Adrienne 
a la casserole ! Bon appetit, Pere Jacques /" 

The days wore on, and the weeks, and 
the months. Paris, wan, and pale, and 
hunger-stricken, still held out. Winter came, 
and threw its icy pall over the city, " hiding 
her guilty front " under innocent snow. 
The nights were long and cold; the dawn 
was bleak and desolate ; the tepid noon 
brought no warmth to the perishing fire-girt 
multitudes. N'o sign . of succour came to 
them from without. In vain they watched 
and waited, persecuting time with hope. 
The cannon kept up its booming sob through 
the black silence of the night ; through the 
white stillness of the day. Hunger gnawed 
into their vitals, till at last even hope. 



MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 



217 



weary with disappointment^ sickened and 
died. 

One morning tlie neighbours noticed Pere 
Jacques' door and window closed long after 
the hour when' he was wont to be up and 
busy. They knocked, and getting no answer, 
turned the handle of the door ; it opened at 
once, being neither barred nor locked, only 
closed as if the master were within ; but he 
was not : the little room was tenantless ; the 
mattress and the scanty bed-clothes were 
gone; the iron bedstead, a table, a stool, and 
two cane chairs were the only sticks of fur- 
niture that remained ; the shelves were bare 
of the bright pewter tankards and platters 
that used to adorn them ; the gilt clock with 
its figure of Pegasus bestrid by a grenadier, 
which had been the glory of the mantelpiece, 
had disappeared. 

What did it all mean ? Had the enemy 
made a raid on Pere Jacques and his pro- 
perty during the night, and carried away the 
lot in a balloon ? Great was the consterna- 
tion, and greater still the gossip of the Httle 



218 MADEMOISELLE ADRIENNE. 



community, when the mysterious event be- 
came known in the quartier. What had 
become of Pere Jacques ? Had he been 
kidnapped, or had he been murdered, or had 
he taken flight of his own accord, and 
whither, and why ? 

Nothing transpired to throw any hght on 
the mystery ; the gossips, tired of guessing, 
soon ceased to think about it, and like many 
another nine-days' wonder, Pere Jacques' 
disappearance died a natural death. 

A day came at last when the mitrailleuse 
hushed its hideous shriek, the cannon left off 
booming, the wild beasts of war were silent. 
Paris cried Merci! and the gates were 
opened. The city, like a sick man, healed of 
a palsy, rose up and shook herself, and rubbed 
her eyes, and ate plentifully after her long 
fast. Many came back from the outposts 
who had been wept over as dead. There 
were strange meetings in many ways during 
those first days after the capitulation. But 
no one brought any news of Pere Jacques, 
j^o one thought of him, Thefe were too 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



219 



many interests, nearer and dearer, to think 
of, and, in tlie universal excitement of sliame 
and vengeance and rare flastes of joy, lie and 
Mademoiselle Adrienne were forgotten as if 
they had never been. 

But when, on the day of my return to 
Paris, my conversation with my concierge 
was interrupted by the cheering of the crowd 
in the Rue Billault, and when the cause of 
the hubbub was made known, the fact that 
both Pere Jacques and his idee were well 
remembered — and, as the newspapers put it, 
universally esteemed by a large circle of 
friends and admirers — was most emphatically 
attested. Nothing could, indeed, be more 
gratifying than the manner in which their 
resurrection was received. The pair looked 
very much the worse for their sojourn in the 
other world, wherever it was, to which they 
had migrated. 

Mademoiselle Adrienne's appearance was 
most affecting. She was worn to skin and 
bone : certainly, if, in her present condition, 
Pere Jacques had sacrificed his idee to his 



220 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



life, and taken her to tlie shambles, she 
would not have fetched over ten francs, or a 
good brace of rats from the butchers of the 
Rue Valois. She dragged her legs, and 
shook and stumbled as if the weight of her 
attenuated person were too much for them. 
Even her old enemies, the gamins, were 
moved to pity ; while Pere Jacques, laughing 
and crying, and apostrophising Mademoiselle 
Adrienne in the old familiar way, cheered her 
on to their old home. How she ever got 
there is as great a marvel as how she had 
lived to be led there to-day, for what between 
physical exhaustion and mental anxiety, and 
what between the well-meant but injudicious 
attentions of sundry little -boys who kept 
stuflB.ng bits of straw and lumps of sugar 
into her mouth all the way, it is little short 
of a miracle that she did not choke, and give 
up the ghost on the macadam of the Rue 
Billault. 

Many an ass has been lionized before, and 
many a one will be again no doubt; it is 
a common enough sight in these days ; but 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



221 



never did, or will, or could hero or heroine of 
tlie tribe bear tliemselves more becomingly 
on the trying occasion than did Mademoiselle 
Adrienne. As to Pere Jacques, he bore 
himself as well as he could, striving hard to 
look dignified and unconscious, while in his 
inmost heart he was bursting with pride, A 
facetious spectator observed, as he and Made- 
moiselle Adrienne ambled on side by side, 
that Pere Jacques looked quite beside him- 
self" And truly this was a great day for 
him and his ass. Yet notwithstanding that 
his heart was moved within him, and softened 
towards all men — nay, towards all boys — he 
could not be induced to say a word as to 
where he had been, or what he had done, or 
how he and Mademoiselle Adrienne had fared 
in the wilderness, or what manner of wilder- 
ness it was, or anything which could give a 
clue to their existence since they had dis- 
appeared separately from the horizon of the 
E.ue Billault. Provisions were too dear 
during the first fortnight after the capitula- 
tion to allow of Pere Jacques resuming his 



222 



MADEMOISELLE ADEIENNE. 



old trade in apples and cauliflowers at once ; 
besides Mademoiselle Adrienne wanted rest. 

Pauvre cherief II faut qii^elle se re- 
mette iin peu de la vaclie enragee!'^ lie re- 
marked tenderly^ wlien his friends condoled 
with him on her .forced inactivity. He would 
not hear of hiring her out for work^ as some of 
them had proposed. Mere Richard came and 
offered a fabulous price for the loan of her 
for three daySj with the view to a stroke of 
business at the railway station, where food 
was pouring in from London ; but Pere 
Jacques shook his fists at the carnivorous old 
hag, and warned her never to show her un- 
natural face in his house again, or it might 
be worse for her. 



ETNTS. 



NUMBEE THIRTEEN, 

AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES, 



Mademoiselle de Lunaq,de and her sister^ 
Madame de Chanoir, lived at Ko. IS^ Rue 
Roy ale. They were the daughters of a mili- 
tary man, whose whole fortune when he 
married, consisted in his sword, and of a 
noble Demoiselle de Cambette, whose wedding 
portion, in accordance with the good old 
French custom, was precisely the same as her 
husband's, minus the sword. Over and above 
this joint capital, the young people had a good 
stock of hope and courage, and an inex- 
haustible fund of love, consequently they had 
as fair a chance of getting on in life as any 
other young folk who embark on the journey 
to fortune furnished with the same light im- 
pedimenta. 



224 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



Monsieur de Lunaque^ moreover, had 
friends in Mgli place^ who had promised 
him countenance and protection. There was 
no reason therefore, that he and his wife 
could see, why he should not in due time 
clutch that legendary baton which ISTapoleon 
declared every French soldier carried in his 
knapsack. I^or, indeed, considering things 
from a retrospective point of view, was there 
any reason that we can see why he should 
not have died a Marshal of France, except 
that he died too soon. The young soldier 
Vv^as in a fair way of climbing to the topmost 
rung of the military ladder, but just as he 
had got his foot on the third rung, death 
stepped down and met him, and he climbed 
no more. 

His wife followed him to the grave three 
years later. 

They left two little girls, Felicite and 
Aline, the only fruit of their short and happy 
union. The orphans were educated at the 
Legion of Honour, and then sent adrift on 
the wide, wide world to battle with its winds 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



225 



and waves — to sink or swim as best tliey 
could. They swam. Perhaps we ought rather 
to say they floated. The eldest, Felicite, was 
married from St. Denis to an old General, who, 
after a remarkably short time, had the dehcacy 
to betake himself to a better world, leaving 
his young widow at the head of an income 
of about forty pounds a year. Aline might 
have married under similar circumstances, 
but having turned it over in her mind she 
came to the conclusion that since the^e was 
only a choice of evils, and that she was con- 
demned to earn her bread in some way, she 
preferred, on the whole, earning and eating 
it independently as a single woman. This 
decision of hers gave rise to the only quarrel 
the sisters had yet known in their lives. 
Felicite resented the disgrace Aline was going 
to inflict on the family name by degenerating 
into a coureuse de cachet^ when she might 
have secured forty pounds a year for ever by 
a few years' dutiful devotion to a brave man 
who had fought his country's battles. 

Well, if you can find me a nice little old 

15 



226 AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



warrior of ninety/' said the younger sister on 
her eigliteentli birthday, which occurred a 
month before she left St. Denis, ^^^I'm not 
sure that he might not persuade me ; but I 
never will capitulate under ninety. No man 
is to be trusted below that. They live for 
ever when they marry between sixty and 
eighty, and there are no tyrants like them. 
I^ow, I could stand a year or two of dutiful 
devotion, as you call it, but I've no notion of 
taking^fea situation as garde-malade for fifteen 
or twenty years, and that's what one gets by 
marrying a youngster of seventy or there- 
abouts." 

Felicite urged her own case as a proof to 
the contrary. General de Chanoir was only 
sixty-eight when she married him, and he 
retired at seventy ; but Aline maintained that 
this was the one exception necessary to prove 
the rule to the present generation, and as no 
eligible parfA of fourscore and ten presented 
itself before she left school, she held to her 
resolve, and started at once as a coureuse de 
cachet. 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 227 



The sisters took an appartement together 
— if two rooms, and a cabinet de toilette, and 
a cooking-range in a dark passage dignified 
by the name of kitchen, can be called an 
appartement — at 13, Rue Eoyale. 

Madame de Chanoir was small and fair, 
and very distinguished looking. She had 
never known a day's illness in her life, but 
she was a hypochondriac, and believed herself 
afflicted with a spine disease which necessi- 
tated reclining all day long on the sofa, in a 
Louis XV. dressing-gown and a Dubarry 
cap. 

Aline was tall and dark, not exactly 
pretty, but indescribably piquante. Without 
being delicatCj her health was far less robust 
than her sister's; but she was blessed with 
indomitable spirits and a fund of energy that 
carried her through a variety of aches and 
pains, and often bore her successfully through 
her round of daily work, when another v\^ould 
have given in. The domestic establishment 
of the sisters consisted in a femme de 
menage who rejoiced in the name of Madame 



228 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



Cleiy, She was a type of a class now almost 
extinct in Paris. A dainty little cook, clean 
as a sixpence^ honest as the sun, orderly as a 
clock, a capital servant in every way ; she 
came twice a day to No, 13, two hours in the 
morning and three hours in the afternoon, 
and the sisters paid her twenty francs a 
month ; she might have struck for more 
wages, and rather than let her go they would 
have managed somehow to raise them ; but 
Madame Clery was born before strikes came 
into fashion ; it was quite impossible to say 
how long before ; her age was incalculable ; 
her youth belonged to that class of facts 
spoken of as beyond the memory of the oldest 
man in the district. Aline used to look at 
her sometimes and wonder if she could really 
ever have been born, and if she meant to die 
like other people ; the crisp, wiry, old woman 
looked the sort of person never to have either 
a beginning or an end. They had had her now 
for eight years — at least Madame de Chanoir 
had — and there was not the shadow of change 
in her. Her gowns were like herself, they 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



229 



never wore out. Neither did her caps, high 
J^ormandy caps, with flaps extended hke a 
windmill in repose, stiff, white, and uncom- 
promising. Everything about her was anti- 
quated. She had a religious regard for 
antiquity in every shape, and a proportionate 
contempt for modernism ; but of all earthly 
things, what her soul loved best was an old 
name, and what it most despised a new one. 
She used to say that if she chose to cook the 
rods of a parvenu she might make double the 
money, and it was true ; but she could not 
bend her spirit to it : she liked dry bread 
and herbs better from des gens de bonne 
maison, than a stalled ox from des gens d^hier. 
She was as faithful as a dog to her two mis- 
tresses, and consequently lorded it over them 
like a stepmother, perpetually bullying and 
scolding, and bewailing her own infatuation 
in staying with them while she might be 
turning a fatter poulet on her own spit 
at home than the miserable coquille at 
No. 13 ever held a fire to. Way had 
she not the sense to take the menage 



230 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



that Monsieur X , the agent de change 

across the street had offered her again and 
again ! 

The femme de menage was, in fact, as 
odious and exasperating as the most devoted 
old servant who ever nursed a family from the 
cradle to the grave. But let auy one else 
dare so much as cast a disrespectful glance at 
either of her victims ! She shook her fist at 
the concierge's wife one day for venturing to 
call Madame de Chanoir, Madame de Ohanoir 
tout courts instead of Madame la Generale de 
Chanoir, to a flunkey who came with a note ; 
and she boxed the concierge's ears for speak- 
ing of Aline as I'lnstitutrice/' As Ma- 
dame la Generale's sofa was drawn across the 
window that looked into the courtj she 
happened to be an eye-witness to the two 
incidents, and heard every word that was 
said ; and this accidental disclosure of 
Madame Clery's regard for the family dig- 
nity before outsiders covered a multitude of 
sins in the eyes of both the sisters. Indeed, 
Madame de Chanoir came at^last^ by force of 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 231 

habit, almost to enjoy being bullied by tlie 
old sou]. 

" Gela nous pose^ ma chere,^' she would 
remark complacently, when the wind from the 
kitchen blew due north, and Aline threatened 
to mutiny. 

Aline never could have endured it if she 
had been as constantly tried as her easy- 
going sister was ; but, luckily for all parties, 
she went out immediately after breakfast, and 
seldom came in till late in the afternoon, when 
the old woman was busy getting ready the 
dinner. 

It was a monotonous life they led, the 
two young women ; but on the whole it was 
a happy one. Madame de Chanoir, seeing 
how bravely her sister carried the burthen 
she had taken up, grew reconciled to it in 
time. They had a pleasant little society too ; 
friends who had known them from their child- 
hood, some rich and in good positions, others 
struggling like themselves in a narrow cage, 
and under difficult circumstances ; but one 
and all liked and respected the sisters, and 



232 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 

brought a little contingent of sunshiDe to 
their lives. As to Aline, she had sunshine 
enough in herself to light up the whole Rue 
Royale. Every lesson she gave, every inci- 
dent of the day, no matter how trivial, fell 
across her path like a sunbeam ; she had a 
knack of looking at things from a sunny 
focus that shot out rays on every object that 
came within its radius, and of extracting 
amusement and interest from the most com- 
monplace things and people; even her own 
vexations she turned into fun. Her position 
of governess was a fountain of fun to her. 
When another would have drawn gall from a 
snub, and smarted and been miserable under 
a slight, Aline de Lunaque saw a comic side 
to the circumstance, and would dress it up in 
a fashion that diverted herself and her friends 
for a week. Moreover, the young lady was 
something of a philosopher. 

" You never find out human nature till 
you come to earn your bread — I mean women 
don't," she would say sometimes to Madame 
de Chanoir. ^^Ii I were the mother of a 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



233 



family of daugliters and wanted to teach 
them life, I'd make every one of them, no 
matter how big their dots were, begin by 
running after the cachet ; nobody who hasn't 
tried it would believe what a Castle of Truth 
it is to one, a mirror that shows up character 
to the life, a sort of moral photography. It 
is often as good as a play to me to watch the 
change that comes over people when, after 
talking to them and making myself pass for 
a very agreeable person, I suddenly announce 
the fact that I give lessons. Their whole 
countenance changes ; not that they look on 
me straightway with contempt, oh, dear no ! 
Some good Christians, those of the aide-toi- 
et-Dieu-faidera sect, conceive on the con- 
trary a great respect for me ; but I become 
metamorphosed on the spot — I am not what 
they took me for ; they took me for a femme 
du monde^ a femme comme tout le monde, 
and I was all the time a governess ! With- 
out blaming me they cannot but feel they 
have been taken in, that I am an altogether 
different variety from themselves, and that it 



234 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



is very odd they did not recognize tlie fact 
at first sight. But these are the least ex- 
citing experiences. The real fun is when I 
get hold of an out-and-out worldly individual, 
man or woman, but a woman is best, and let 
them go on till they have thoroughly com- 
mitted themselves, made themselves gushingly 
agreeable to me, perhaps gone the length of 
asking me in a significant manner whether I 
live in their neighbourhood ; then comes the 
crisis. I smile my blandest, and say : 
^ Monsieur^ or Madame^ je donne des legons /' 
Ghangement de decoration a vue d^oeil^ ma 
chere. It's just as if I lanced an obus into 
the middle of the company, only it rebounds 
on me and hits nobody else ; the eye-brows 
of the company go up, the corners of its 
mouth go down, and it bows to me as I sit 
in the ruins of my respectability, shattered 
to pieces by my own obus." 

I cannot understand how you can laugh 
at it ; in your place I should have died of 
vexation and mortified pride long ago," said 
Madame de Chanoir one day, as Aline related 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



235 



in high glee an obus episode that she had had 
that morning; ''but I really believe you 
have no feeling." 

" Well, whatever I have, I keep it out of 
the reach of vulgar impertinence ; I should 
be very sorry to make my feelings a target 
for insolence and bad breeding," replied 
Aline pertly. 

This was the simple truth. Her feelings 
were out of the reach of such petty shafts, 
they were cased in cheerfulness and common- 
sense, and a nobler sort of pride than that in 
which Madame de Chanoir considered her 
wanting. If, however, the obus was often fatal 
to Mademoiselle de Lunaque's social standing, 
on the other hand it occasionally did her 
good service. But of this later. Its present 
character was that of an explosive bomb 
which she carried in her pocket and lanced 
with infinite gusto on every available oppor- 
tunity. 

On Saturday evenings the sisters were 
"at home." These little soirees were the 
event of their quiet lives. All the episodes 



236 AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



and anecdotes of tlie week were treasured up 
for that evening, wlien tlie intimes came to 
see them, and converse, and sip a glass of 
cold eau sucree in summer, and a cup of hot 
ditto in winter (but then it was called the), 
by the light of a small lamp with a green 
abat-jour. There was no attempt at enter- 
tainment or finery of any sort, except that 
Madame Clery, instead of going home when 
her dinner things were washed up, stayed to 
open the door. It was a remnant of the kind 
of society that used to exist in French 
families some thirty years ago, when conver- 
satioD was cultivated as the primary accom- 
plishment of men and women, and when they 
met regularly to exercise themselves in the 
difficult and delightful art. It was not re- 
served exclusively to the well born and wealthy 
to talk charmingly and cleverly in those days 
when the most coveted encomium that could 
be passed on any one was, " il cause bien 
all educated classes vied for it; every 
circle had its centre of causerie, the modest 
fauteuil de Vaieule and the brilliant salon of 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



237 



the femme d' esprit — each had its audience, 
attended as assiduously, and perhaps enjoyed 
as keenly as the Ambigus and Yaudeville, 
that have since drawn the bourgeois away 
from the one, and the man of fashion from 
the other. Besides its usual habitues, each 
circle had one habitue who took precedence 
of all the others, and was called the ami de 
la maison. The ami de la maison at ITo. 13, 
was a certain professor of the Sorbonne, 
named Monsieur Dalibouze. He was some- 
where on the sunny side of fifty, a bald, 
pompous little man, who wore spectacles, 
took snuff, and laid down the law, very prosy 
and very estimable, the type and pink of a 
professor. M. Dalibouze had never married, 
but it was the dream of his life to marry ; he 
had meditated on marriage for the last thirty 
years, and of course knew a vast deal more 
about it than any man who had been married 
double that time. He was never so prosy or 
so emphatic as when expounding the duties 
and joys of domestic life; no matter how 
tired he was after a long day's scientific 



238 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



researcli, how disappointed by tlie failure of 
some pet scientific scheme, the moment 
marriage came on tlie tapis, lie cheered up 
and was as bright as a cricket. This hobbj 
of the professor s was a great amusement to 
Madame de Chanoir, who delighted to see 
him jump into the saddle and ride ofi* at a 
canter while she lay languidly pulling at her 
canvass, patting him on the back every now 
and then by a smile of approval or an en- 
couraging word. Sometimes she would take 
him to task seriously about putting his 
theories into practice and getting himself a 
wife, assuring him that it was quite wicked 
not to marry when he possessed all the 
qualities necessary to make a model husband. 

Oh, madame, if I thought I was capable 
of making le honheur d^une jeiine femme ! 
M. Dalibouze would exclaim, with a sigh ; 
but at my age ! 
" Comment, monsieur, at your age ! " the 
Generale would protest ; why, it is the very 
flower of manhood, the moment of all others 
for a man to marry ; you have outlived the 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 239 

delusions of youtli, but none of its charms ; 
you have crossed the rubicon that separates 
folly from wisdom, and you have left nothing 
on the other side but the silly chimera of 
boyhood. Believe ine, the woman whom you 
would select would never wish to see you a 
day older." And M. Dalibouze would caress 
his chin, and observe thoughtfully, ^^Vous 
croyez, madame ? " 

Aline had no sympathy with his raphso- 
dies or his jeremiades — they bored her to 
extinction, and it was sometimes all she could 
do not to tell him so ; but she disapproved 
of his being made a joke of, and testified 
against it stoutly, when Pelicite in a spirit of 
mischief led him up to some more than 
usually ridiculous culmination. It was not 
fair, she said, to make a greater fool of 
the good little man than he made of himself, 
and instead of encouraging him to talk such 
nonsense one ought to laugh him out of it, 
and try to cure him of his conceit. 

I don't see it at all in that light," 
Madame de Chanoir would argue; ''in the 



240 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



first place, if I laughed at Mm, or rather, if 
I let him see that I did, he would never for- 
give me, and as I have a great regard for 
him I should be sorry to lose his friendship ; 
in the next place, it's very amusing to see him 
swallow my little doses of flattery so com- 
placently, and as nothing I, or anybody else, 
could say could possibly add one grain to his 
self-conceit, I have no scruple about its doing 
him any harm." 

It was partly by way of protesting against 
this system of flattery that Aline periodically 
snubbed the professor, and partly because she 
had reason to suspect his dreams of married 
bliss centred upon herself ; in fact, she knew 
they did. He had never told her so outright, 
for the simple reason that whenever he 
approached that crisis. Aline cut him short in 
such a peremptory way, that it cowed him 
for weeks ; but she knew in her heart of 
hearts that she reigned supreme over M. 
Dalibouze's. She would not have married 
him, no, not if he could have crowned her 
Queen of the Sorbonne and the College de 



AISI EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



241 



France, but the fact of Ms being lier slave, 
and aspiring to be her master constituted a 
claim on her regard which a true-hearted 
woman seldom disowns. Felicite would have 
favoured his suit if she- thought there had 
been the ghost of a chance for him, but she 
suspected there was not. 

Madame Clery looked coldly on it. Need- 
less to say, neither M.Dalibonze nor his relent- 
less lady love, had ever made a confidant of 
the femme de menage ; but she often remarked 
to her mistresses when either of them ven- 
tured an opinion connected with her special 
department : Je ne siiis pas nee d'hier,^' an 
assertion which, strange to say, even the 
rebellious Aline had never attempted to gain- 
say. Madame Clery was not; indeed, born 
yesterday; moreover, she was a French- 
woman, and a particularly wide-awake one ; 
and from the first evening that she saw Aline 
sugaring M. Dalibouze's tea, dropping in 
lump after lump in that reckless way, while 
the little man held his cup, and beamed at 

her through his spectacles as if he meant to 

16 



242 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



stand there for ever^ simpering : " Merci ! 
encore / " it occurred to Madame Olery that 
there was more in it than tea-making. Of 
course it was natural and proper that a yonng 
woman, especially an orphan, should think of 
getting married, but it was right and proper 
that her friends should think of it too, and 
see that she married the proper person. 
I^ow, on .the face of it, it was very doubtful 
that M. Dalibouze could be the proper person. 
Madame Clery waited, however, till the 
suspicion that he had settled it in his own 
mind that he was that man, took the shape 
of a conviction in her before she considered 
it her duty to interfere. By interfering, 
Madame Clery understood going aux renseig-- 
nements. Nobody ever got true renseigne- 
ments when a marriage was in question, 
except -people like her. Ladies and gentlemen 
never get behind the scenes with each other, 
or if they do, they never tell what they see 
there ; they are very sweet and smiling when 
they meet in the salon, and nobody guesses 
that madame has been rating her femme-de- 



AN EPISODE or TWO SIEGES. 243 

cliambre for not putting the flowers in her 
hair exactly to her fancy, or that monsieur 
has just flung the boot-jack at his valet for 
bringing hirii his shaving water too hot or 
too cold. If you want the true renseigne- 
ments you must get them by the back stairs. 
This was Madame Glery's opinion ; and acting 
on it, she set ofi* one morning to the Rue 
Jean Beauvais, where M. Dalibouze lived, with 
a view to taking up his character from the 
concierge. 

The first thing to be ascertained before 
entering on such secondary details as temper, 
conduct, etc., was whether or not the pro- 
fessor was of sufficiently honne maison to be 
entertained at all as a pretendant for 
Mademoiselle de Lunaque. On this sine qua 
non point, the concierge could unfortunately 
throw no light. His locataire had a multi- 
tude of friends, all gens comme-iUfaid, many 
of them decores, who drove up to the door 
in their own coupes, but of his family Pipelet 
knew nothing. Of his personal respecta- 
bility there could be no doubt whatever 



244 AN EPISODE OF TWO STEGESe 

lie was the kindest of men^ the pearl of 
locataireSj always in before midnight, and 
gave forty francs to Pipelet on New Year's 
Dayj not to speak of sundry other bonuses 
on minor fetes through the year. But so 
long as her mind was in the dark on the 
main point, all this was no better than 
sounding brass in the ears of Madame Olery. 

Has he, or has he not the particide ? " 
she demanded, cutting short Pipelet in the 
midst of his panegyric. 

The loarticule ? repeated Pipelet. 
The particule nohiliaire/^ explained Madame 
Clery, with a touch of contempt; there's 
some question of a marriage between him 
and a lady whom I know, but if M. Dali- 
bouze hasn't got the particule it cannot be 
thought of." 

"Madame," said Pipelet, assuming a 
confidential tone, and unwilling to own that 
he was quite at sea as to what this essential 
piece of property might be, " I'm not a 
man to betray any confidence that my loca- 
taires think fit to place in me ; Me Dah- 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 245 



bouze has more than once spoken to me of 
different placements lie had made with his 
money ; but, as I say, I am a discreet man, 
and I would rather not speak about those 
things. I could, however, give you the name 
of his homme-d' affaires, if I thought you 
would not compromise me." 

I'm not that woman to compromise 
anyone that showed me confidence," said 
Madame Clery, bristling up, and bobbing her 
flaps at him ; but you need not give me the 
name of his homme-d' affaires ; what sort of 
a fiofiiro should I make at his homme- 
d'affaires ? Give me his own name. How 
does he spell it ? " 

Spell it ? " echoed Pipelet. 

A big or a little d?'' said Madame 
Clery. 

Why, a big D, of course ! Who ever 
spelt their name with a little d ! " sneered 
Pipelet. 

'^Ah!" Madame Clery smiled a smile 
of serene pity on the benighted ignoramus, 
;and then observed coldly : I suspected it. 



246 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



I'm not easy to deceive on those sort of 
things, I was not born yesterday. Good 
morning. Monsieur le Concierge !" 
She moved towards the door. 
Stop !" cried Pipelet, seizing his berettOj, 
as if a hght had suddenly shot through his 
skulL Stop ! now I think of it, it's a httle 
d! I've not a doubt but it's a httle d. I 
noticed it only yesterday on a letter that 
came for monsieur; and I said to myself^ 
^ Tiens ! what a funny thing for an liomme 
distingue^ like M. le Professeur, to spell his 
l^ame with a little d ! ' La, if I did not say 
those very words to myself no later than yes- 
terday !" 

Madame Clery was sceptical. She asked 
if there was no letter just then in Mon- 
sieur Dalibouze's box, that would have settled 
the question at once ; unluckily there was not^ 
so she had nothing for it but to go home, and 
turn it in her mind w^hat was to be done nextc 

After all, it was a great responsibility she 
felt. The old soul considered herself in the 
light of a protector towards the two young 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 247 



women — one a cripple on the broad of lier 
back, the other a Hght-hearted creature who 
believed in everybody and everything ; it was 
her place to look after them as far as she 
could. 

That afternoon, when Madame Clery went 
to iNio. 13 after her fruitless expedition to the 
Rue Jean Beauvais, she took up a letter to 
Madame de Chanoir. She had never seen, 
or at any rate never noticed, the writing 
before ; but, as she handed the envelope to 
her mistress, it flashed upon her that it was 
from Monsieur Dalibouze, and that it bore on 
the subject of her recent peregrination. She 
seized a plumeau that hung by the fireplace, 
and began vigorously threatening the clock 
and the candlesticks as an excuse for staying 
in the room and observing Madame de Cha- 
noir in the looking-glass while she read the 
letter. The femme de menage was an iras- 
cible enemy to dust ; they were accustomed to 
see her at inopportune times pounce on the 
plumeau and begin whipping about her to the 
right and left, so Madame de Cuauoir took 



248 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



I 



no notice of tliis sudden castigation of the 
cliimney-piece at four o'clock in tlie after- 
noon. Slie read her note, and then, tossing 
it into the basket beside her, resumed her 
tapestry as if nothing had occurred to divert 
her thoughts from roses and Berlin wool. 

Madame la Generale, pardon et excuses/^ 
said Madame Clery, deliberately hanging the 
plumeau on its nail, and going up to the foot 
of la Generale's sofa : I have it on mv mind 
to ask something of madame/' 
Ask it, ma bonne." 

" Does Madame la Generale think of mar- 
rying Mamzelle Aline 

Madame de Chanoir opened her eyes and 
stared for a moment in mild surprise at her 
femme de menage ; then a smile broke over 
her face, and she said reproachfully : 

You have been thinking that you would 
not like to go on living with me if I were 
alone." 

'^Iwas not thinking of that, madame," 
replied Madame Clery, in a ceremonious tone 
that was unusual with her, and would have 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



249 



boded no good — tlie femme de menage was 
never so polite as when slie was going to be 
particularly disagreeable — except that she 
looked at her rather affectionately, Felicite 
thought, as their eyes met. 

''Well/' said Madame de Chanoir, ''I 
suppose we must marry her some day; 
perhaps I ought to bestir myself about it 
more than I do; but there is time enough 
to think of it, and mademoiselle is in no 
hurry." 

" Dame ! " said Madame Clery, testily ; 
''when a demoiselle has coiffed Sainte Cathe- 
rine there's not so much time to lose. Par- 
don et excuses, Madame la Generale, but, I 
don't know why, I thought that letter might 
have something to do with it ?" 

" This letter ! What could have put that 
into your head ?" 

Madame de Chanoir took up the note to 
see if there was anything on the envelope 
which warranted the romantic suspicion ; but 
it bore no trace of anything more peculiar 
than the post-mark. 



250 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



"As I have told Madame la Generale 
before, I was not born yesterday," observed 
Madame Clery, empliasizing the not as if 
Madame Chanoir had denied that fact, and 
challenged her to swear to it on the Bible ; 
" and I don't carry my eyes in my pocket, and 
when a demoiselle heaps lumps of sugar into 
a gentleman's cup till it's as thick as honey 
for the spoon to stand in, and a shame to see 
the substance of the family wasted in such a 
way, and she never grudging it a bit, but 
looking as if it would be fun to her to turn 
the sugar-bowl upside down over it ; I say, 
when I see that sort of thing, I'm not femmo 
Clery if there isn't something in it." 

Felicite was inclined to laugh; but she 
checked herself, and observed interrogatively : 

" Well, Madame Clery, suppose there is ? " 

This extravagance in sugar on the part of 
Monsieur Dalibouze was an old grievance of 
Madame Clery' s. In fact, it had been her 
only one against the professor till she came 
to look upon him as the possible husband of 
Aline; and then the question of whether he had 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



251 



or had not the particule assumed such alarm- 
ing importance in her mind, that it magnified 
all minor defects, and she believed him 
capable of every misdemeanour under the 
sun. 

''Madame la Grenerale/' she replied, 
''one does not marry every day; one ought 
to think seriously about it. Mamzelle Aline 
has no experience, she is vive and light- 
hearted ; she is a person to be taken in by 
outward appearances ; such things as learn- 
ing, esprit^ and good principles would blind 
her to serious shortcomings. It is the duty of 
Madame la Generale to prevent such a mis- 
fortune in time." 

" What shortcomings are you afraid of in 
Monsieur Daliboaze !" inquired Madame do 
Chanoir, dropping her canvass, and looking 
with awakened curiosity at the old woman. 

" Partons d\m principe^ Madame la 
Generale," explained Madame Clerj^, demurely, 
slapping the back of her left hand; "Mam- 
zelle Aline is nee, the father and mother of 
mamzelle vv^ere both of excellent maisgn^ con- 



252 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



sequently it is of the first necessity that her 
husband should be so too. The first thing, 
therefore, to be considered in a pretendantis 
his name* l^ovv, has Monsieur Dahbouze the 
particiile. or has he not?" 

It was an effort for Madame de Chanoir 
to maintain her gravity under this cliarge and 
deliver/ with which the old woman closed 
her speech, and then stood waiting the effect 
on her listener ; still, such is the weakness of 
human nature, the Generale de Chanoir, nee 
de Lunaque, was flattered by it. It was 
pleasant to be looked up to as belonging to a 
race above the common herd, to be recognized 
in spite of her poverty, even by a femme de 
menage, as superior to the wealthy parvenus 
whose fathers and mothers were not des gens 
d^excellente maison. 

My good Madame Clery," she said, 
after a moment's reflection^ you, like our- 
selves, were brought up with very different 
ideas from those that people hold now-a-days. 
Nobody cares a straw to-day who a man's 
father was, or whether he had the ijarticule 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 253 



or not ; all they care about is tliat he should 
be well educated, well conducted, and well off. 
Aiitres temjps^ autres moeurs^ ma bonne. 
One must go with the times, and give in to 
the force of public opinion around one. I 
would, of course, much rather have a brother- 
in-law of our own pate than one richer and 
cleverer who was not ; but, que voidez-vous ? 
One cannot have everything. It is not 
pleasant for me to see Mademoiselle de 
Lunaque earning her own bread, running 
about the streets by herself like a milliner's 
apprentice. I would overlook something to 
see her married to a kind, honourable man 
who could keep her in comfort and inde- 
pendence." 

^' Bonte divine!'' exclaimed Madame Clery, 
with a look of deep distress, and throwing up 
her hands in consternation ; Madame would 
then actually marry mamzelle to a bourgeois 
sans particule ? For madame admits that M. 
Dalibouze has not the particnle; that he 
spells his name with a big D 

*'Alas! he does," confessed la Generale, 



254 AN EPISODS OF TWO SIEGES. 



^' but lie comes, nevertheless, of a good old 
K"ormaiidy stock, Madame Clery. His great- 
grandfather was procureur duroi under— 

Tut, tut r' interrupted Madame Clery. 
His great-grandfather might have been any- 
thing he liked. If he wasn't a gentilhomme 
he has no business marrying his great-grandson 
to a de Lunaque ; cette chose la n^est pas dans 
Vordre, Madame la Gen er ale. Mamzelle's 
father would turn in his grave if he saw her 
married to a man that spelt his name with a 
big Br 

The conversation, happily for Madame de 
Chanoir, was interrupted at this point by a 
ring at the door. It was Aline. She was 
earlier than usual, owing to one of her pupils 
not being able to take her lesson. The young 
girl was flushed and excited ; she flung herself 
into a chair and burst into tears the moment 
she entered. 

Madame de Chanoir sat up in alarm, and 
thinking her sister was seized with an ab- 
normal hysterical weakness, suggested some 
fleur d'oranger in a glass of eau sucree. 

K 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



255 



Oil, it's nothing ! I am an idiot to let 
such impertinence vex me/' she said, brushing 
away the tears defiantly. 

''What was it? Who was impertinent 
to mamzelle ?" inquired Madame Olery. 

" A horrid man that followed me the 
length of the street, making impudent 
speeches all the way," sobbed Aline, 

^^'Est il possible r exclaimed the old woman 
aghast, and clapping her hands together, 
'' Well, mamzelle does astonish me ! I thoup-ht 
young men knew better now-a-days than to 
be at those sort of tricks. Fifty years ago it 
was common enough. I remember how they 
used to persecute me every time I went out 
to church or to market, till I never knew 
which way to turn ; but now, bless you ! I 
come and go, and nobody makes free so much 
as to look at me. To think of their daring 
to speak to mamzelle !" 

'' That's what one is subject to when 
one walks about alone at her age," said the 
Grenerale, dryly, with a significant glance at 
Madame Clery, which that good lady under- 



256 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



stood, and resented by compressing her lips 
and bobbing her flaps, as much as to say : 
" One has a principle, or one has not Prin- 
ciple being in this instance synonymous with 
particule. 

After this incident things remained in statu 
quo for some years. Madame de Chanoir did 
not enlighten her sister on the subject of 
her conference with Madame Clery, but she 
worked as far as she could in favour of the 
luckless suitor who spelt his name with a 
capital D. It was of no use, ho wever. Aline 
continued to snub him so pertinaciously that 
Madame de Chanoir at last gave up his cause 
as hopeless, and the professor himself, seeing 
this, his solitary stronghold, surrender, thought 
it best to raise the siege and make a friendly 
truce with the victor. He withdrew there- 
fore frankly from the field of jpretendants and 
took up his position as ami de la maison. 
Having once done this, he adopted the conse- 
quences ; he accepted the prerogatives and 
responsibilities of the place, and held himself 
on the qui vive to render any service in his 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



257 



power to Madame de Cbanoir ; lie kept her 
concierge in order, and brought bonbons and 
flowers to No. 13 on every possible occasion. 
H e knew Aline was passionately fond of the 
latter, and he was careful to keep the jardi- 
niere that stood in the pier of the little salon 
freshly supplied with her favourite plants, and 
the vases filled with her favourite flowers. 
He never dared to off'er her a present, but 
under cover of the Generale he kept her sup- 
plied with the most interesting books that 
came out. Finally, Frenchman-like, having 
abandoned the hope of marrying her himself, 
he set to work to find some m^ore fortunate 
candidate. This was, par excellence, the duty 
of rami de la maison, and M. Dalibouze was 
fully alive to its importance. The zeal he dis- 
played in the discharge cf it would indeed 
have been comical but for the spirit of self- 
sacrifice that animated him and touched it 
with pathos. One by one every ehgible 2Jarti 
in the range of his acquaintance was led up 
for inspection to No. 13. 

Madame de Chanoir entered complacently 

17 



258 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



into the presentatioiis ; tliey amused her, 
and she tried to persuade herself that^ sooner 
01^ later^ something would come of them. 
But she knew Aline too well to let her into 
the secret of the Professor's matrimonial 
manoeuvres ; the result would have been to 
furnish Mademoiselle de Lunaque with an 
obus opportunity, nothing more. 

But do what she would^ the Grenerale 
could never cheat Madame Clery. The old 
woman flair ed a pretevdant as ^a cat does a 
mouse — it was an instinct, there was no 
putting her off the scent. She never said a 
word to Madame de Chanoir, but she had 
a most aggravating way of making her 
understand tacitly that she knew all about 
it, that in fact she was not born yesterday. 
This was her system : when ever Monsieur 
Dalibouze brought a parti to tea in the 
evening, Madame Clery was seized next day 
with a violent dusting fit ; and when the 
Generale testified against the feathers that 
kept flying in her face out of the plumeau, 
Madame Clery would observe significantly, 



AN EPISODE OP TWO SIEGES. 259 



drawing in her lips : Madame la Generale, 
that makes an impression when one sees a 
salon well ejootiste, that proves that the 
demoiselle of the house has order, that she 
looks after the menage; Madame does not 
think of those things, but strangers do." 

It became at last a sort of cabalistic 
ceremonial with the old woman, intelligible 
only to herself and Madame de Chanoir. If 
Aline came in when the fit was on her, and 
ventured to expostulate, and ask what she 
was doing with the plumeau at that time of 
day, Madame Clery would reply sententiously. 
Mademoiselle Aline, j^epouste.'^ 

Aline at length came to believe it was a 
modified phase of St. Vitus' s dance, and that 
the old beldame, always possessed by her 
idee fixe, vented her nerves on imaginary 
dust, pursuing it into holes and corners with 
her feathery weapon. 

This went on till Mademoiselle de Lunaque 
was six-and "twenty. She was still a bright, 
brave creature, working hard, and accepting 
the privations of her life of toil in a spirit of 



260 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



sunshiny courage. But the sun was no 
longer always shining. There were days 
now when he drew behind a cloud and hid 
himself, when toil pressed like a burthen, 
and she beat her wings and hated the cage 
that cooped her in, and longed not so much 
for rest or happiness as for freedom, for 
larger space, for wider aims, for fuller sym- 
pathies. When these cloudy days came 
round. Aline felt the void and thraldom of 
her life with an intensity that amounted at 
times to anguish. She felt it all the more 
keenly that she could not speak of it. The 
sisters were sincerely attached to each other, 
but there was little sympathy of character 
between them. On many points they were 
as utter strangers to each other as the 
tenants in the next house. They knew this, 
and sensibly agreed to keep clear of certain 
subjects on which they could never meet 
except to disagree. The younger sister, 
therefore, when the sky was overcast, and 
when her spirits flagged, never tried to lean 
upon the elder, but worked against the 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 261 



enemy in silence, denying herself the luxury 
of complaint. 

If her looks betrayed her, as they some- 
times would, and prompted Madame de 
Chanoir to inquire if there were anything 
more amiss with her than the dulness of life 
in general. Aline' s quiet assurance that 
there was not, was invariably met by the 
rejoinder, My sister, I wish you were 
married." Which Aline as invariably an- 
swered with, "I am happier as lam, Fehcite." 
It was true — or at any rate Mademoiselle 
de Lunaque thought it was. Under her 
surface indifference she carried a woman's 
heart. She had dreamt her dream of 
woman's Paradise, of ideal sympathy, of 
tender fireside joys, and the dream was so 
fair and sweet that it filled her life like a 
reality through the years of her blooming 
spring-time. But the spring passed, and 
the summer came, and with its ripening 
flowers it brought stronger lights, maturer 
thoughts, a more practical knowledge of 
human beings, and Aline discovered, or 



262 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



fancied she did, that the dream was too 
beautiful to be ever anything but a dream. 
She accepted the discovery with a pang, but 
without idle repining, and laid aside all 
thought of marriage as a quest that was not 
for her. As to the marriages that she saw 
made around her every day, she would no 
more have bound herself in one of their 
ignoble bonds than she would have sold 
herself to an eastern pacha. Marriage w^as 
an altogether difierent thing in her eyes from 
what it was in Madame de Chanoir's. On 
no point were the sisters more asunder than 
on this, and Aline understood it so well that 
she carefully avoided touching on it. When 
the subject was introduced by others she put 
on a mask of frivolity to hide her real feel- 
ings, and avoid bringing down Felicite's 
ridicule on what she would stigmatize as 
preposterous sentimentality. 

Monsieur Dalibouze alone guessed some- 
thing of this substratum of deep feeling that 
underlay the surface of the young girl's 
character, "With the subtle instinct of afFec- 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES, 



263 



tion he penetrated the disguise in which she 
wrapped herself; and with a dehcacy that 
she scarcely gave him credit for, he never 
let her see that he did. Sometimes, indeed, 
when one of those fits of tristesse was upon 
her, and she strove to dissemble -it by in- 
creased cheerfulness towards everybody, and 
sauciness towards him, the Professor would 
adapt the conversation to the tone of her 
thoughts with a skill and apropos that sur- 
prised her. Once, in particular. Aline was 
startled by the way in which he betrayed 
either a singularly close observation of her 
mind, or a still more singular sympathy with 
its moods and sufferings. It was on a Satur- 
day evening; the little circle was gathered 
round the fire, and the conversation fell upon 
poetry and the mission of poets amongst 
common men. Aline declared it was the 
grandest of all missions ; that no missionary, 
whether prophet, philosopher, artist, or 
soldier, did so much for the happiness and 
spiritual redemption of his fellows as the 
poet, that in fact he combined ^11 ministries 



264 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



if lie wished ; if lie was a patriot lie could 
serve liis country better than the bravest 
soldier, he could fxre the souls of her sons by 
singing her wrongs, her hopes, and her 
glories, and make all mankind vibrate to the 
touch of his inspired hand in pain, in joy, in 
noble, emancipating revenge. She quoted 
Moore and Krazinski, Arndt, and other 
patriotic bards, who, living, had ruled their 
people, and sent down their names a legacy 
of glory to unborn generations, till, by de- 
grees, warming with her subject, she grew 
quite eloquent, and broke off in a passionate 
cry of admiration and envy : — 

Oh what a glorious thing to be a poet ! 
To be even a man with power of action, of 
living a noble life, instead of being a weak, 
good-for-nothing woman !" 

The little ring of listeners smiled at her 
enthusiasm, and thought she must have a 
very keen appreciation of poetry to be so 
carried away in speaking of it. But M. 
Dalibouze saw more in it than this ; he saw 
an under-current of impatience, of disap- 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



265 



pointment, of restless longing to go and do 
likewise^ to spread her wings and fly, to wield 
a sceptre of some sort that had power to 
make others spread their wings ; there was a 
spirit's war-cry in it, a rebel's impotent cry 
against the narrow, inexorable bondage of her 
life. 

Yes/' he said ; it is a grand mission, I 
grant yon, bnt not such a rare .one as you 
make it ont, Mademoiselle Aline. There are 
more poets in the world than those who write 
poetry ; few of us are given to be poets in 
language, but we may all be poets in action 
if we will; we may live out our lives in 
poems." 

If we had the fashioning of our lives 
no doubt, we might," assented Aline, ironi- 
cally ; " but they are most of them so shabby 
that I defy Homer himself to manufacture an 
epic or an idyll out of them." 

"You are mistaken. There is no life too 
shabby to be a poem," said M. Dalibouze ; 

it is true, we cannot fashion our lives as you 
say, but we can colour them, we can 



206 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



harmonize them ; but we must begin by 
behoving this, and by getting our materials 
in orders we must sort them and arrange 
them, just as Madame la Generale is doing 
there with her threads and silks, and then 
we must go on patiently, working out the 
pattern leaf by leaf; by and by, when the 
threads get tangled, as they are sure to do 
with the best worker, instead of pulhng 
angrily at them, or cutting them with the 
sharp scissors of revolt, we must call up a 
soft breeze from the land where the spirit of 
the true poet dwells, and bid it blow over 
them, and then let us listen, and we shall 
hear the spirit- wind draw tones out of our 
tangled web, sweeter than the music of the 
breeze sweeping the strings of an eohan 
harp. It is our own fault, or, perhaps, offcener 
our own misfortune, if our lives look shabby 
to us, we look at them piecemeal, bit by bit, 
instead of considering them as a whole." 

"But how can we look at them as a 
whole?" said Aline; we don't even know 
whether they will ever develop into a whole ; 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



267 



how many of us remain on the easel a sort of 
washed-in sketch to the end? It seems to 
me we are pretty much like apples in an 
orchard : some drop off in the flower, some 
when they are little green buttons, hard and 
sour, and good-for-nothing ; it is only a tithe 
of the tree that comes to maturity." 

" And is there not abundance of poetry in 
every phase of the apple's life, no matter when 
it falls ? " demanded M. Dalibouze. How 
many poems has the blight of the starry 
blossom given birth to ? And the little green 
button ! who may count the odes that the 
school-boy has sung to it, not in good hex- 
ameters, perhaps, but in sound heart-poetry, 
bubbling with the zest and gusts of youth, 
when all bitters were sweet ! EJi^ mon Dieu ! 
when I think of the days when a stolen bite 
at a sour green apple was honey in my mouth, 
I could be a poet myself ! No pate cle foie 
gras ever tasted half so sweet as that fruit 
defendu of my childhood." 

" Va loour le fruit defendu!'' said Aline, 
amused at the Professor's sigh of attendrissc' 



268 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



onent over the reminiscence ; but that is 
only one view of the question, if the apples 
could speak they would give us another." 

" Would they ? " said M. Dalibouze, " I'm 
not sure of that. If the apples discuss the 
point at all, believe me, they are agreed that 
whatever befals them is the very best thing 
that could. We have no evidence of any 
created thing — vegetable, mineral, or animal, 
— grumbling at its lot: that is reserved to man. 
Discontent is man's prerogative; he quarrels 
with himself, with his destiny, his neighbours, 
everything by turns. If we could but do like 
the apples, blossom, and grow, and fall, early 
or late as the winds and the gardener decreed, 
w^e should be happy. Fancy an apple 
quarrelling with the sun in spring for not 
warming it as he does in August ! It would 
be no more preposterous than it is for men to 
quarrel with their circumstances. The fruit 
of our lives have their seasons like the fruit 
of our gardens ; the winter snows and the 
sharp winds are just as necessary to both as 
the summer heat ; all growth is gradual, and 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



269 



we must accept the process througli wliicli 
we are brought to maturity just as the apples 
do ; it is not the same for all of us ; some 
are ripened under the hot, vibrating sun, 
others resist it, and like certain winter fruit, 
require the cold, twilight days, to mellow 
them. But it matters little what the process 
is, it is sure to be the right one if we wait 
for it and accept it." 

I should very much like to know what 
stage of it I am in at the present moment,'' 
said Aline. I can't say the sun has had 
much to do with it ; so far, the wind and the 
rain have been the busiest agents in my 
garden." 

" Patience, mademoiselle ! " said M. 
Dalibouze; the sun will come in his own 
good time." 

You answer for him ? " 

"I do." 

Aline looked him straight in the face as 
she put the question, and M. Dalibouze met 
the saucy bright eyes with a grave glance 
that had more of tenderness in it than she 



270 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



had ever seen there before. It flashed upon 
her for a moment that the sun might come to 
her through a less worthy medium than this 
kind 3 faithful, honourable man, and that 
perhaps she had been a fool to her own 
happiness in' shutting the garden-gate on 
him so contemptuously. Perhaps the Pro- 
fessor read the thought on her face, for he 
said in a penetratiug Yoice, and fixing his 
eyes upon her : 

Le vrai soleil de la vie c^est le managed 
It was an unfortunate remark. It broke 
the spell. 

Aline tossed back her head, and burst 
into a merry laugh. 

A day will come, I hope, when some 
one w^U tell you so, and you w^ill not laugh. 
Mademoiselle Aline,'' said Monsieur Dali- 
bouze humbly, and hiding his discomfiture 
under a smile. 

This was the only time within the last 
two years that he had betrayed himself into 
any expression of latent hope with regard to 
Mademoiselle de Lunaque, and it had no 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



271 



sooner escaped Mm tlian lie regretted it. 
The following Saturday, by way of atonement, 
he brought up a most desirable 2^arti for 
inspection, and next day Madame Clery was 
seized with the inevitable dusting fit. N'o- 
thing, however, came of it. 

Things went on at Ko. 13 without any 
noticeable change till September, 1870, when 
Paris was declared in a state of siege. The 
sisters were not among those lucky ones who 
wavered for a time between going and stay- 
ing, between the desire to put themselves in 
safe keeping, and the temptation of living 
through the blocus and boasting of it for the 
rest of their days. There was no choice for 
them but to stay. Aline therefore made the 
best of it ; she must stay, so she settled it in 
her mind that she liked to stay, that it would 
be a wonderful experience to live through, 
the most exciting episode that could have 
broken up the stagnant monotony of their 
lives, and that in fact it was rather an en- 
joyable prospect than the reverse. 

Madame Clery was commissioned to lay 



272 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



in as ample a store of provisions as tlieir 
purse would allow, and the little group en- 
couraged each other to face the coming 
events cheerfully and bravely like patriotic 
citizens. Of the magnitude of those events 
or their own probable share in the national 
calamities, they had a very vagae notion. 

The situation was critical/' M. Dalibouze 
assured them, " mais nullement desesperee ; 
on the contrary, France, instead of being at 
the mercy of the enemy, was now a la veille 
de rScraser^ de remijorter une de ces victoires 
qui font palir Vhistoire. It was the incom- 
mensurable superiority of the French arms 
that had brought her to this pass, that had 
driven Prussia mad with rage and roused her 
to defiance. Infatuated Prussia ! She would 
mourn her own folly once and for ever. She 
would find that Paris was not alone the 
queen of civilization and the arts and sciences, 
but that she was also the most impregnable 
fortress that ever defied the batteries of a 
foe. Europe had deserted Paris, after be- 
raying France to her enemies ; now the day 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



273 



of retribution was at hand, Europe would 
reap the fruits of her base jealousy, and wit- 
ness the triumph of the capital of the world !" 

This was M. Dalibouze's opinion, and he 
gave it in public and private to any one wh 
cared to hear it. When Madame de Chanoir 
asked if he meant to remain in Paris through 
the siege, the Professor was so shocked by the 
imphed affront to his patriotism, that he had 
to control himself before he ventured to reply. 

" Comment, Madame la Generale ! you 
think so meanly of me as to suppose I would 
abandon my country at such a moment ! Is 
it a time to fly when the vandals are at our 
gates, and when the nation expects every 
citizen to stand forth and defend the capital, 
and scatter to the winds those miserable 
mangeuTS de choucroute ! 

And straightway acting up to this 

patriotic credo, M. Dalibouze had himself 

measured for a National Guard uniform. No 

sooner had he endossed it than he rushed off 

to Nadar's and had himself photographed. 

He counted the hours till the proofs came 

18 



274 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



home, and then, bursting with satisfaction, 
he set out for No. 13. 

" It is unbecoming," he said with a shrug, 
as he presented his carte de visite to the 
Generale, mais que voidez-vous ? a man 
must sacrifice everything to his country; 
what is personal appearance that it shou.ld 
weigh in the scales against duty ? Bah ! I 
would get myself up en polichinelle, and perch 
all day on the top of Mont Valerien if it could 
scare away one of those despicable brigands 
from the walls of Paris ! " 

You are wrong in saying it is unbecom- 
ing, monsieur," protested Madame de Cha- 
noir, attentively scanning the portrait where 
the military costume was set off by a semi- 
heroic pose, and then glancing at the original, 
she added, I think the dress suits you ad- 
mirably." 

You are too indulgent, madame," said 
the Professor ; you see your friends through 
the eyes of friendship ; but in truth it was 
purely from an historical point of view that 
I made the httle sacrifice of personal feeling ; 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 275 



the portrait will be interesting some day 
when wOj the actors in the great dramaj have 
passed away/' 

But time went on and the prophetic 
triumphs of M. Dalibouze at which history 
was to grow palcj were not accomplished. 
The mangeurs de choucroute held their 
ground, and provisions began to grow scarce 
at N"oo IBo The purse of the sister s, never 
a large one, was now seriously diminished. 
Aline' s contribution to the common fund 
having ceased altogether from the beginning 
of the siege. Her old pupils had left, and 
there was no chance of anj^ new ones at a 
time like this, l^o one had money to spend 
on lessons, or leisure to learn ; the study 
that absorbed every body was how to manu- 
facture food and fuel out of impossible ele- 
ments. Every one was suffering in a more 
or less degree from the miseries imposed 
by the state of blocus ; one would have 
fancied that the presence of death in so many 
shapes — by fire without, by cold and famine 
within— would have detached people generally 



276 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



from life, made them forgetful to a certain 
extent of tlie wants of the body, and absorbed 
them in snblimer cares. But it was not so. 
After the first shock of hearing the cannon 
at the gates close by, they got used to it. 
Later, when the bombardment came, there 
was another momentary panic ; but it calmed 
down and they got used to that too. Shells 
could apparently fall all round without killing 
them. So they turned all their thoughts to the 
comforting and cherishing of their poor, 
afflicted bodies. 

It must have been sad, and sometimes 
grimly comical, to watch the singular phases 
of human nature developed by the blocus. 
One of the oddest and most frequent was the 
change it wrought in human beings concern- 
ing their food. People who had hitherto 
been ascetically indiflerent to it, and never 
cast a thought on their meals till they sat 
down to them, now grew monomaniacal on the 
point, and could think and speak of nothing 
else. Meals were in fact talked of, as far as 
we can gather, more than politics, or the 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



277 



Prussians, or the probable issue of the siege, 
or any of the gigantic problems that were 
being resolved both inside and outside 
the besieged city. Intelligent men and 
women discussed by the hour, with gravity 
and gusto, the best way of preparing cats, and 
dogs, and rats, and mice, and all the other 
abominations that necessity had substituted 
for food. Poor human nature was ferment- 
ing under the process like wine in the vat, 
and all its dregs came uppermost ; selfishness, 
greediness, callousness to the sufferings of 
others, ingratitude, all the pitiable mean- 
nesses of man boiled up to the surface and 
showed him a sorry figure to behold. 

But other, nobler things came to the 
surface too. There were innumerable silent 
dramas, soul-poems being evolved in many 
unlikely places, making no noise beyond their 
quiet sphere, but travelling high and sound- 
ing loud behind the curtain of grey sky that 
shrouded the winter sun of Paris. The 
cannon shook her ramparts, and the shells 
flashed like lurid furies through the midnight 



278 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



darkness ; but far above the din, and the 
darkness^ and the death-cries, rose the low, 
sweet music of many a brave heart's sacri- 
fice — the stronger giving up his share to the 
weaker, the son hoarding his scanty rations 
against the day of still scantier supplies^ 
when the weakened frame of an aged father or 
mother would suffer more cruelly from the diet 
that grew worse and less as time went on, talk- 
ing big about the impossibility of surrender, 
and lightly about the price of resistance. 

There were mothers in Paris — and where 
mothers are, there is ever to be found 
self-sacrifice in its loveliest, divinest form. 
How many of them toiled and sweated, aye, 
and begged, subduing all pride to love, that 
the little ones might eat their fill, uncon- 
scious of the tooth that was gnawing the 
breadwinner^ s vitals. We who heard the 
thunder of the artillery and the blasting shout 
of the mitrailleuse, we did not hear these 
things ; but other ears did, and not a note of 
the sweet music was lost : angels were 
hearkening for them, and as they rose above 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



279 



the discord — like crystal bells tolling in a 
storm- wind — the white- winged messengers 
caught them on golden lyres and wafted them 
on to Paradise, 

There was music enough chiming at 'No. 
13 to keep a choir of angels busy. Madame 
de Chanoir, with the petulance of a weak 
nature, grumbled unceasingly, lamenting the 
miseries of her own position and utterly 
ignoring everybody else's, whinging and 
whining from morning till night, pouring out 
futile invectives against the Prussians, the 
Emperor, the Eepublic, General Trochu, 
everybody and everything remotely instru- 
mental to her sufferings. She threatened to 
let herself die of hunger rather than touch 
horseflesh, and for some days she held so 
energetically to the threat that Aline was 
terrified, and believed she would carry it 
out to the end. The only thing of value that 
remained to the younger sister was her 
mother's watch, a costly little gem with the 
cypher set in brilliants; it had been her 
grandfather's wedding-present to his daughter- 



280 



AN EPISODE OF TTTO SIEGES. 



in-law. Aline took it to the jeweller who 
liad made it, and sold it for a hundred and 
fifty francs. With this she bought a ham and 
a few other delicacies that tempted Madame 
de Chanoir out of her suicidal abstinence ; she 
ate heartily, neither asking nor guessing at 
what price the dainties had been bought; 
and Aline, glad to have had the sacrifice to 
make, said nothing of what it had cost her. 

■Grradually everything that could be sold, 
or exchanged for food, went. Aline would 
have fared uncomplainingly on the miser- 
able siege diet if she had been alone ; but 
it was a hard trial to listen to Madame de 
Chanoir's never-ending jeremiades^ to see her 
childish anger at the great national disasters 
which her egotism contracted into direct per- 
sonal wrongs. Fortunately for herself Ma- 
demoiselle de Lunaque was not a constant 
witness of the irritating scene. From nine in 
the morning till late in the afternoon she was 
away at the ambulance, active and helpful, 
cheering many a burning heart by her bright 
and gentle ministry, and forgetting her own 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 2S1 

sufferings in tlie effort to alleviate greater 
ones. 

If you could come with me, Felicite, 
and see what our poor soldiers suffer, it would 
make your own privations seem nothing," 
she would often say, when on coming home 
from her labour of love she was met by the 
querulous complaining of the invalid ; and 
it is such a delio-ht to feel oneself a comfort 
and a help to them. I don't know how I am 
ever to settle down again to the make-believe 
work of teaching after this long spell of real 
work. 'What a pity that ladies cannot be 
nurses without being nuns ! " 

She enjoyed the work so much, in fact, 
that, if it had not been for the sufferings, 
real and imao^inarv, of her sister, this would 
have been the happiest time she had known 
since her school-days. The make-believe 
work, as Aline called it, had never filled her 
heart. It was a means of living that kept 
her hands and her brain at work, nothing 
more; and it had often been a source of 
wonder to her to find herself in her busiest 



282 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



days seized with ennui. That light, hackneyed 
word hardly, perhaps, expresses the void, the 
sort of hunger-pang that more and more fre- 
quently of late years had made her soul ache 
and yearn, and which she had never been 
able to give a reason for. But now the light 
seemed to break upon her, and show her why 
it had been so. The work itself was too 
superficial, too external. It had overrun her 
life without satisfying it ; it had not brought 
out the deepest resources of her mind and 
. heart ; it had only broken the crust and left 
the soil below untilled. She had flitted, like 
a butterfly, from one study to another ; his- 
tory, and literature, and music had by turns 
attracted her ; she had gone into them enthu- 
siastically, mastered their difficulties, and 
appropriated their beauties ; but after a time 
the spell waned, and she glided imperceptibly 
into the dry mechanism of the thing, and 
went on giving her lessons because it brought 
her so much a cachet. 

But this work of a sister of mercy was a 
different sort of thing altogether. The enthu- 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



283 



siasm, instead of waning, grew as she went on. 
At first the prosaic details, the foul air, the 
physical fatigue and moral strain of the sick 
nurse's life were unspeakably repugnant to 
her ; her natural fastidiousness turned from 
them in disgust, and she would have thrown 
it all up after the first week but for sheer 
human respect. At the end of a fortnight 
she had grown interested in her patients; 
by degrees she got reconciled to the obnoxious 
duties their state demanded of her, and before 
the month was out it had become a ministry 
of love, and her whole soul had thrown 
itself into the perfect performance of it. 
She was often tired and faint on leaving 
the ambulance, but she always left it with 
regret, and the evident zest and glad- 
ness of heart with which she set out every 
morning to her work became a grievance to 
Madame do Chanoir. She vented her dis- 
content by harping all the time of breakfast 
on the hard-heartedness of some people who 
could look at wounds and all sorts of horrors 
without flinching, whereas the very sight of 



284 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



a drop of blood made her almost faint ; but 
then she was so constituted as to feel other 
people's sufferings as if they were her own ; 
it was a misfortune. She envied people who 
had hard hearts ; it certainly enabled them 
to do more, while she could only shudder and 
pity. Aline bore the illogical reproaches as 
stoically as if she had been blessed with one 
of those organs of stone that the Generale so 
envied. She had found the secret of making 
her life a poem, and extended the indulgence 
of a happy heart to the follies and weaknesses 
of those around her. 

But the nurse's courage was greater than 
her strength. After the first three months' 
material privations, added to the arduous 
attendance on the -wounded, began to tell 
upon her health. 

M. Dalibouze was the first to notice it. 
He came punctually every Saturday to No. 1 3, 
as in the old peaceful days ; his age, luckily, 
exempted him from the terrible out-post work 
on the ramparts, and he profited by the cir- 
cumstance to keep up as far as possible his 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



285 



ordinary habits and enjoyments, afin de 
soutenir le morale^ as he said to himself. 
When he noticed this change in AHne, exer- 
cising his prerogative of ami de la maison, 
he interfered ; he took her severely to task 
about her imprudent zeal, and begged her 
while exerting herself with such praiseworthy 
self-devotion in behalf of the poor victims of 
the war, to remember that her life was very 
precious to her sister and her friends. Aline 
met the advice very kindly, but assured him 
that far from wearing out her strength, as 
he supposed, her work was the only thing 
that sustained it. The tone in which she 
said this carried conviction to M. Dalibouze, 
who began to consider what he could next 
accuse as being the cause of her palor and 
languid appearance. It occurred to him that 
it must be the siege diet. Everybody suffered 
in a more or less degree, but, as it always 
happens, those who suffered most said least 
about it. The gros rentier who fared sump- 
tuously on kangaroo and Chinese puppies, 
and elephant at a hundred francs a pound. 



286 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



talked loud about the miseries of starvation 
tliat lie underwent for his country's sake; 
but tlie petit rentier whose frugal pot-au-feu 
had long since been replaced by a scanty 
ration of horse-flesh, and that only to be had 
by making tail " for hours at the butcher's 
shop, the i^etit rentier said very little. He 
was perishing slowly off the face of the 
earth, but with the pride of poverty strong 
in death, he gathered his rags around him, 
and made ready to die in silence. 

It was on such people as Madame de 
Chanoir and her sister that the siege pressed 
hardest ; their concierge was far better off 
than they. She could claim her hons and 
fight for her rations, and she had fifteen sous 
a day as the wife of a National Guard. 

As to Madame Clery, she proved herself 
equal to the occasion. She had no National 
Guard to fall back on, but she was a good 
patriot, and the thought that she was sufiering 
for her country upheld her. Patriotism, how^- 
ever, had its limits of endurance, and hay 
bread was the border line that Madame Clery' s 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES, 



287 



patriotism refused to pass. When the staff 
of life was rationed slie showed signs of 
mutiny, but when it degenerated into that 
repulsive compound of ground bones, clay, 
bran and hay, of which many of us have seen 
specimens, her indignation could no longer 
contain itself. The first time a loaf of the 
spongy, tawny dough was handed to her after 
three hours' qimie at the baker's, she broke 
it in two, and pulling out a long straw, held 
it up to the wrathful scorn of the citizens. 
" Sommes-iious done des betes pour qu^on 
nous fasse manger du foin /" she exclaimed, 
and was answered by a howl of sympathy 
from the spectators. AVhen Madame de 
Chanoir saw it and tasted it, she went into 
hysterics for the rest of the day. 

But Providence was mindful of No. 13. 
Just at this crisis, when Aline' s altered looks 
aroused the Generale from the selfish con- 
temiplation of her own ailments, M. Dalibouze 
arrived one morning soon after Mademoiselle 
de Lunaque had started for the ambulance, 
and announced that he had received tlie 



288 AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



opportune present of several hams, tins of 
preserved meat, condensed milk, and an in- 
definite number of pots of jam ; it was three 
times as much as he could consume before 
the siege was raised, for raised it infallibly 
would be, and that within the next forty-eight 
hours if he were not greatly mistaken, so he 
begged Madame de Chanoir to do him the 
favour of accepting the surplus. Madame de 
Chanoir, with infantine simplicity, believed 
this credible version of the story, and did M. 
Dalibouze the favour he requested. Thus 
the Professor had the delight of seeing Aline 
revive on the substantial fare that arrived so 
apropos. Well, it came at last, the end of 
the blows. Not, indeed, as M. Dalibouze had 
prognosticated ; but that was not his fault. 
He had not reckoned with treachery. He 
could not suspect what a brood of serpents the 
glorious capital of civilization was nourishing 
in her patriotic bosom. But wait a little ! It 
would be made square yet. Europe by and 
by would see France rise like the phoenix 
from her ashes, and spread her wdngs and 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



289 



take a flight that would astonish the world. 

As to the Prussians, those vile vandals who 

were unworthy to clean the boots of Paris 

with their beards, let them bide a while, and 

they would see .... etc. Thus did M. 

JJalibouze resume la situation while Paris on 

her knees waited for the terms that Prussia 

was dictating as the price of a loaf of bread 

for her starving patriots. 

But the worst was yet to come. Hardly 

had the little menage at No. 13 drawn a 

long breath of relief after the capitulation of 

the city, when that saturnalia, the like of 

which the world never saw before — and, let 

us hope, never will again — the Commune, 

began. Like a fiery flood it rose in Paris, 

and rose and rose till the red wave swept 

the city from end to end, spreading ruin and 

death everywhere, and making the limp, 

pusillanimous party of order sigh for the 

Prussians to come back to help them to get 

out of their cellars. How it grew and how 

it ended, we have heard till we know the 

miserable story by heart. I am not going 

19 



290 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



to tell it here. The Commune is merely the 
last episode in the history of IsTo. 13. 

There y/as work to do, and plenty, for 
Aline during this last and fearfuUest ordeal, 
and her courage did not fail her. She bound 
up wounds, and smoothed pillows, and 
whispered words that dying ears are open 
to when spoken in faithful love. She asked 
no questions as to the politics of the wounded 
men, but did the best she could for them. 

Madame de Chanoir was disgusted and 
shocked to see her sister attending on Red 
Republicans : they were a race of vipers, and 
the sooner they died out the better ; it was 
no part of a Christian woman's duty to pre- 
serve the lives of such fiends. 

" There are dupes • as well as fiends 
amongst them," Aline assured her, and 
even if they were not, the guiltier they were, 
the more to be pitied." 

After a time, however, the dangers* of 
going out at all became so great that Aline 
was compelled to remam indoors. Barricades 
were thrown up in every direction, and made 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



291 



circulation next to impossible ' to members of 
tlie party of order. The Rue Eoyale, wliicli 
liad been safe during the first siege^ was now 
a centre of accumulated danger. It was 
armed to the teeth. The faubourg end of 
it was locked by a massive stone barricade, 
with two cannon, like black slugs, peeping 
over a hedge, couched on the top of it, ready 
to give tongue at any moment. After eight 
mortal weeks the moment came, and they 
opened their iron throats and bellowed, and 
every battery around them bellowed in 
response. The troops came in, and there 
w^as the final tug when Greek met Greek. 
Shell and shot rained like hailstones ; it was 
the discord of hell broke upwards through 
the earth, and echoing along the streets of 
Paris. . 

Aline de Lunaque and her sister sat in 
the little salon at N"o. 13, listening to the 
war-dogs without, and straining their ears 
to catch every sound that shot up with any 
significant distinctness from the chaos of 
noise. Madame Clery was with them. She 



292 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



stayed altogether at No. 13 nowj sleeping on 
t,lie sofa at niglit. To-day the old woman 
was as restles s as a squirrel ; slie could not 
keep quiet^ but was constantly running up 
and down stairs, putting her ear to the 
porte-cochere^ and trying to hear some news 
through the chinks. Once she went down, 
and before she returned an explosion rever- 
berated through the street, shaking the house 
from, cellar to garret, and, like a shock from 
an electric battery, flinging both the sisters 
on their knees. 

Madame de Chanoir's spine had recovered 
itself during the last week as if by magic ; 
she had altogether abandoned her recumbent 
position, and came and went like anybody 
else. 

" Felicite, I must go and see w^hat's the 
matter. I fancy I hear groans. Perhaps a 
shell has burst in the court and killed 
her," said Aline, rising and going to the 
door. 

^' Don't leave me! For the love of heaven 
don't leave me alone, Aline !" implored her 



AN- EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 293 



sister ; " I'll die if that conies again while 
I'm by myself." 

" Come with, me, then/' said Aline, 
taking her hand, and they went down to- 
gether. 

Madame Clery was not killed. This fact 
was made plain by the spectacle of the old 
woman standing under the porte-cochere and 
shaking her fist vehemently at somebody or 
something at the further end of it. 

" Stay here," said Aline, motioning 
Madame de Chanoir back into the house, 
I will see what it is, and if you are wanted, 
I'll call you." 

It was the concierge that Madame Clery 
was apostrophizing, and this was why : A 
shell had burst, not in the court, as the 
sisters fancied, but in the street just outside, 
and the explosion was instantaneously fo% 
lowed by a loud blow at the door, while 
something like a body fell heavily against it. 

" Gordon cried Madame Clery. It's 
somebody hit by the shell." 

More likely a Communist coming to 



294 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



pillage and burn; I'll cordon to none of 'em!" 
declared tlie concierge. The door is locked; 
if they want to get in let them blow it open." 

But Madame Clery flew at her throaty 
and swore if she did not give up the key and 
pull the string, she, Madame Clery, would 
know the reason why. 

The concierge groaned, and felt in bitter- 
ness of spirit, " combien le cordon etait un 
sacerdoce difficile." But she opened the 
door. 

Eight under it lay two wounded men. 
One of them was evidently dying; he had 
been struck in the side by a fragment of the 
shell that had burst oyer the door and dealt 
death around and in fro^it of it. The other 
was wounded too, but not fatally ; he had 
been flung down by his companion, and the 
shock of the fall had stunned him. 

Madame Clery dragged them in under 
the shelter of the porte-cochere, and pro- 
posed laying them on the floor of the' lodge. 
But the concierge had no mind to take in 
a pair of dying men, and yowed she would 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



295 



not have her lodge turned into a morgue. 
The dispute was waxing warm, Madame 
Clery threatening muscular argument, when 
Aline made her appearance. Her training 
in the ambulance stood her in good need 
now. 

Poor fellow ! He will give no more 
trouble to any one/' she said, after feeling the 
pulse of the first, and laying her hand for a 
moment on his heart; bring a cloth and 
cover his face. He must lie here till he can 
be removed." 

They composed the features, threw a 
napkin over them, and laid the body under 
cover of the gateway. 

Aline then turned her attention to the 
other. His left arm was badly wounded. 
While she was examining it, the young man 
opened his eyes, stared round him with the 
speculative gaze of returning consciousness, 
and then made an effort to rise. He fell back 
at once. 

You are wounded ; not seriously, I 
hope," said Aline, but you must not 



296 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



try to move till we have dressed your 
arm." 

She dispatched Madame Clery for the box 
containing her hospital appliances — lint^ ban- 
dages, etc. — and then, with an expertness 
that might have done credit to a medical 
student, she washed and dressed the shattered 
limb ; Madame de Clianoir, meantime, watch- 
ing the operation from a safe distance through 
the glass door at the foot of the stairs. 

What to do next was the puzzle. The 
concierge resolutely refused to take him into 
her premises. There was no knowing who 
he was or what he was, and she was a lone 
woman and had no mind to compromise her- 
self by taking in bad characters. 

The poor fellow was so much exhausted 
by loss of blood that he was incapable of help- 
ing himself, and it would have been cruelty to 
leave him down in the courtyard, where his 
unfortunate comrade lay stiffening within 
sight of him. Aline saw there was no alter- 
native but to take him up to their own apart- 
ment. How to get him there was the 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 297 



difficulty. He looked about six feet long^ 
and migiit have weighed any number of 
stone; they would never be able to carry 
liim, she feared. There was nothing else for 
it^ however, so she beckoned to the concierge, 
in a determined manner, and told her to come 
and help. 

As a preliminary to the undertaking, 
]\Iadame Clery poured out some wine which 
she had had the wit to bring down with the 
lint-box, and held it to the sufferer's lips, 
vfhile Aline supported his head. He drank 
it with avidity, and it seemed to restore him 
at once ; he sat up, leaning on his right arm. 

" We are going to carry you upstairs, 
moil petit,^' said Madame Clery, patting him 
on the shoulder with the patronizing manner 
a little woman loves to assume towards a big 
fellow-creature. 

You carry me!'' said the young man, 
measuring the short, trim figure of the femme 
do menage with a sceptical twinkle in his eyes. 
They were dark, grey eyes, particularly clear 
and piercing. 



29S 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



"Me and Mamzolle Aline/' said Madame 
Clery, in a tone that resented the supercilious 
way in which her measure was being taken. 

Aline was behind her. He turned to look 
at her with a jest on his lips ; but, changing^ 
his mind apparently, he bowed. Then, with 
a resolute effort, he bent forward, and before 
either she or Madame Clery could interfere, 
he was on his feet. It was well, however, 
that they were within reach of him, for he 
staggered and must have fallen but for their 
prompt assistance. 

" La V said Madame Clery ; " what it is 
to be proud ; lean on Mamzelle Aline and me, 
and try to get upstairs without breaking your 
neck.'' 

A la guerre^ comme a la guerre, made- 
moiselle /" said the gentleman, laughing, and 
accepting the shoulder that Aline turned to- 
wards him. 

They accomplished the ascent in safety ; 
and then, in spite of his assurance that he was 
all right now, Madame de Chanoir insisted 
on their guest lying down on her sofa, while 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



299 



Madame Clery concocted some specific tisane 
for him. 

The stranger who had introduced himself 
so nnexpectedly to 'No. 13 told his good 
Samaritans that he had formed one of the 
party of order who had gone unarmed, with 
a flag of truce, to the federals in the Rue de 
la Paix. He had witnessed the ghastly 
butchery that followed, and only escaped as 
if by miracle himself; he had fought as a 
Mobile in the first siege, and received a sabre- 
cut in the head that had kept him in the 
hospital for weeks ; on his recovery he had, 
of course, refused to join the Commune, and 
it was at the risk of his life that he showed 
himself abroad in Paris. Just- now he was 
making an attempt to join the troops when 
that shell burst and stopped him in his ven- 
turesome career. 

All day, and all that night, the four inmates 
of the little entresol watched and waited in 
breathless anxiety for the close of the battle 
that was raging near them. It never flagged 
for an instant. The noise was terrific. The 



300 AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



tocsin rang from every belfry in the city, tlie 
drum beat to arms in every street, tlie Chasse- 
pots hissed, tiie cannon boomed, and the yells 
and shrieks of fratricidal murder filled the air, 
mingling with the smell and smoke of blood 
and powder. It was a night that drove hun- 
dreds mad who lived through it. And yet 
there was worse even than this at hand. 

Late the next afternoon Aline, who was 
constantly at the window, peeping from be- 
hind the mattrass stuffed into it to protect 
them from the shells, thought she discerned 
something in the atmosphere indicative of a 
new phase. She said nothing, but slipped 
out of the room, and ran up to an ceil-de- 
boeuf at the top of the house, that served as 
a sort of observatory to those who had the 
courage of their curiosity, as the Erench put 
it, and liked to risk their heads a moment to 
the mercy of the missiles flying amongst the 
chimney-pots. 

It was an awful sight that met her. A 
fire was raging close to the house. Where it 
began or ended it was impossible to say ; but 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 301 

— 1 

clearly it was of immense magnitude, and 
blazed with a fury that threatened to spread 
the flames far and wide. She stood rooted 
to the spot, literally paralyzed with terror. 
Were they to be burnt to death after living 
through such agonies, and escaping death in 
so many shapes ? Flight was their only 
chance, and was flight possible ? On every 
side they were locked in by barricades ; if 
they were not shot down like dogs before they 
reached the first — which was probable- 
would they be allowed to pass ? All this 
rushed through her mind as she gazed in 
blank despair out of the little oeil-de-boeuf 
that embraced the whole area of the Eue 
Eoyale and the adjacent streets. 

As yet there was a space between the fire 
and No. 13. Mercifully there was no wind, 
and she saw by the swaying of the flames 
that they drew rather towards the Madeleine 
than the direction of the Rue de Ilivoli. 
Flight was a forlorn hope ; but still they must 
try it. She turned abruptly from the win- 
dow, and was crossing the room, when a 



302 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



load crash made her heart leap. The roof of 
another house, one nearer to No. 13, had 
fallen in, and the flames leaping through, like 
rattle-snakes out of a bag, sprang at the sky 
writhing and hissing as they licked it with 
their long red tongues. 

Oh, God have pity on us ! " 
Aline fell on her knees for one moment, 
and the next she was flying down the 
stairs. 

We must leave this at once," she said, 
speaking calmly, but with white lips ; the 
street is on fire." 

Monsieur Varlay, Citoyen Varlay, as he 
gave his name, started to his feet ; and pull- 
ing aside the mattrasses looked out. The 
flames were visible now above the house-tops. 

^^AUons! Ala garde de Dieu ! " he ex- 
claimed, " we must make for the Rue de 
Rivoli." 

Madame de Chanoir and the femme de 
menage, as soon as they caught sight of the 
fire, shrieked in chorus and made a headlong 
rush at the stairs. 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



303 



Voyons, du calme, madame ! " cried 
M. Varlay in a tone tliat arrested both the 
•women ; if we loose our presence of mind 
we had better stay where we are. Have you 
any valeurs^ papers or money, that you can 
take in your pocket?" he cried, turning to 
Aline. She alone had not lost her head. 

Yes. There were a few letters of her 
parents, and some trinkets, valuable only as 
souvenirs, which she had had the forethought 
to put together. She took them quickly, 
and then they hurried down stairs. The 
lodge was empty. The concierge had taken 
refuge in her cellar, and her husband was 
supposed to be saving France somewhere 
else. But Madame Clery knew the trick of 
the cordon ; she pulled it, and the httle band 
sallied forth into the street. The air was so 
thick they could hardly see their way, except 
for the j&ery forks that shot up far and near 
incessantly through the fog, illuminating 
dark spots with a lurid light, while now and 
then the crash of a roof or the fall of a heavy 
beam was followed by a pillar of sparks that 



304 AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



rattled up to tlie sky like rockets. The 
Babel of drums, and bells, and artillery, added 
to tlie bewildering effect of tke scene, as the 
fugitives hurried on, one by one, under the 
shadow of the houses. They fared safely out 
of the Rue Eoyale and turned to the left. 
The Tuileries was enveloped in smoke, but 
the flames were nearly spent, only here and 
there a tongue of fire crept out of a crevice 
and licked the wall, and twisted, and twirled, 
and drew in again. A crowd was gathered 
under the portico of the Rue de Rivoli watch- 
ing the dying throes of the conflagration and 
discussing many questions in excited tones. 

Our travellers pushed on and came un- 
molested to the corner of the Rue St. Floren- 
tin, when a sentinel levelled his Chassepot 
before them and cried, Ralte /" Madame de 
Chanoir, who walked first, responded by a 
scream. Citoyen Yarlay drew her quickly 
behind him. 

" Stand here while I speak to him," he 
said, and putting his hand in his pocket, he 
advanced to parley with the federal. 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 305 



They liad not exchanged half-a-dozen 
words, when the latter shouldered his Chasse- 
pot and said : — 

" Vite (xloTsfilez / " 

Varlay stood for the woman to pass first. 
Madame de Chanoir and the femme de menage 
rushed on, but no sooner had they stepped 
off the trottoir than clasping their hands, 
they dropped on their knees with a scream 
of terror. 

The sight that met them was indeed 

enough to make a brave heart quail. To the 

left, extending right across the street, rose 

a barricade — a fortress rather— surmounted at 

either end by a warrior of the Commune 

bending over a cannon as if in the very act 

of firing ; in the centre two amazon petrol- 

euses stood with Chassepots en bandeliere^ and 

a red rag in their hand which they waved 

proudly aloft like women who feel the eyes 

of Europe are upon them ; the space on 

either side of them was filled up with soldiers, 

singly or in groups, and posed in the attitude of 

men whom forty centuries look down upon. 

20" 



306 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



Just as Madame de Chanoir and lier bonne 
came in front of the terrible mise en scene, 
and before they conld rush backward or for- 
ward, the word fire ! rang out from the 
fortress ; two matches flashed in the hands 
of the gunners, muskets were levelled, and 
the women dropped down with a cry that 
would have w^aked the dead, 

"What's the matter now?" cried the 
sentinel. 

" They are going to shoafc us ! " 

" lonheciles ! They are going to be photo- 
graphed ! " 

And so they were. A photographic 
battery w^as established against the railings 
opposite. Aline and Citoyen Yarlay seized 
the half fainting women and dragged them 
across, and out of the range of the formidable 
tableau vivaut. 

Meanwhile the fire was gaining on No. 13* 
Three doors down from it the house was 
flamhee. It had been deserted the day before 
by all its occupants save one family, M. and 
Madame X , and their servant, who had 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 307 



obstinately refused to believe in tlie danger. 
They were friends of M. Dalibouze's, and on 
his way to 'No. 13 this afternoon he turned 
in to try and persuade them to fly now. La 
situation etait grave,'' he said, '4t were fool- 
hardy to defy it, and the time was come when 
good citizens might save themselves." He 
succeeded in impressing this view of the 
case on his infatuated friends, and casting a 
last farewell look at their home and its 
precious penates, they left the apartment 
accompanied by their servant. The latter 
was an old soldier, a sapeur, too old for 
military service, but as hale and hearty as a 
youth of twenty. The Professor had gob in 
by a back way from the faubourg St. Honore, 
and thither he led his party now. But the 
exit was already blocked ; the wall of the 
neighbouring house had fallen and stopped it 
up. There was nothing for it but to go 
boldly out by the front door and trust to 
Providence. 

But they reckoned without the petroleuses. 
Those zealous daughters of the Commune, 



308 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



braving the shot and the shell and the venge- 
ful flames of their own creation, sped from 
door to door, pouring the terrible fluid into 
holes and corners, through the gratings of 
cellars, through the chinks of the windows, 
under the doors, everywhere, dancing and 
laughing, and singing all the time like tigers 
in human shape — tigers gone mad with fire 
and blood. When the sapeur opened the 
door he beheld a group of them on the 
trottoir. One was rolling a barrel of petro- 
leum on to the next house ; another was 
steeping rags in a barrel half empty, and 
handing them as fast as she could to others 
who stuffed them into appropriate places and 
set fire to them, and then the flame rose and 
Tv-as hailed by a demoniacal shout of exulta- 
tion. 

The sapeur banged the door in their faces. 
We must set to work and cut our way 
through the wall," he said. " It's the last 
chance left us." 

No sooner said than done. He knew 
where to lay his hands on a couple of crow- 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 309 



bars and a pickaxe ; tlie Professor fired the 
contents of his Ohassepot at the wall, and 
then the three men went at it, and worked as 
men do when death is behind them and life 
before. It was an old house, built chiefly of 
brick and mortar, very little iron, and it yielded 
quickly to the hammering blows of the work- 
men. A breach was made ; a small one, but 
big enough to let a man crawl through. M. 

X passed out first, and then helped out 

his wife. The sapeur and M. Dalibouze fol- 
lowed. They hurried through the next apart- 
ment. M. Dalibouze reloaded his gun. Whiz ! 
whiz ! went the bullets, bang, bang, went the 
crowbars, down rattled the stones ; another 
breach was made, and again they were saved. 
Three times they fought their way through 
the walls, while the fire, like a lava torrent, 
rolled after them, and then they found them- 
selves at No. 13. M. Dalibouze's first thought 
was for the little apartment or the entresol at 
the other side. They made for it, but as they 
were crossing the court, a blow, or rather 
a succession of blows, struck the great oak 



310 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



door ; it opened like a nutshell, and fell wifcli 
a crasli like tluinder. The bnrglars beheld 
M. Dalibonze in his National Guard uniform 
scudding across the yard, and greeted him 
with howls like a troop of jackals. 

"Whiz ! whiz ! went the grape-shot. Mon- 
sieur Dalibouze fell. Before the door gave 

way, M. and Madame X had taken refuge 

in the house, and thus escaped observation. 
Iso one was left but the old sapeur. 

Yoyons !" he said, bearding the men with 
soldierly pluck. What's this about ? What 
do you mean by knocking down doors and 
breaking into the houses of honest citizens ?" 

You had better break out of this one if 
you don't want to grill," answered one of the 
ruffians ; they were five. We are going to 
fire it, pa^' ordre ed la Commune.'' 

The women had disappeared and left their 
implements in the hands of the men. 

Ah ! par ordre de la Commune !" echoed 
the sapeur. Then I've nothing to say. Fire 
away ! I hope they pay you well for the work ?" 

Xot over and above for such work as it 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



311 



is/' said one of tlie incendiaries, rolling a 
barrel into tlie concierge's lodge. 

^^How much?" 

" Ten francs a piece." 
Ten francs for burning a house down I 
Pshaw ! You're fools for your pains ! " 

The sapeur shrugged his shoulders, turned 
on his heel, and walked oflF with his hands in 
his pockets. Suddenly, as if a bright thought 
struck him, he turned round, and said : 

Suppose you got twenty for leaving it 
alone ? " 

Twenty a-piece ? " 

" Twenty a-piece every man of you ! " 

They stopped their work and looked from 
one to another. 

" Ma foi, I'd take it and leave it alone ! " 
said one. 

Pardie ! We've had enough of it, and, 
as the citizen says, it's beggarly pay for the 
work," said another. 

" Done ! " said the sapeur.^ 

* This iDcident is authentic, and occurred at "No. 13, Eue 

Eoyale 



812 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



He pulled out a leatliern purse and 
counted out five gold pieces to the five Com- 
munists. 

Une poignee de main^ citizens!^' said 
the first spokesman. The others followed 
suit, and the sapeur, after cordially wringing 
the fi.ve rascally hands, sent them on their 
Vv^ay rejoicing to the cabaret round the corner. 

This is how No. 13 was saved. 'No. 11 
was burnt to the ground, and then the fire 
stopped. 

But to return to Aline and her friends. 
They got on well till they came to the Rue 
d' Alger, where they were caught in a panic — • 
men, women, and children struggling franti» 
cally to get out of reach of the flames that 
girt them far and near on all sides, and 
threatening to crush each other to death in 
the effort. Our travellers got clear of it, but 
when they found themselves free at separate 
points, the sisters found they had lost each 
other. Madame de Chanoir had held by 
Madame Clery, and was satisfied that Aline 
was safe under the wing of Citoyen Yarlay. 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 313 



But she was mistaken. He had indeed kept 
by her while he could, lifting her off the 
ground and carrying her with his one strong 
arm above the crowd, and saving her very 
likely from being thrown down and trampled 
to death, but when Aline found herself on her 
feet once more, and turned to speak to him, 
he was gone. It w^ould have been madness 
to attempt to look for him in the meUe^ so 
she determined to wait under shelter til] it 
dispersed, and then they would be sure to 
meet. She made for the doorway of a 
mourning house at the corner of the Rue St. 
Honore, but she had not been many minutes 
there when she heard a hue and cry from the 
Tuileries end of the street. Presently a troop 
of men came flying along, driving some people 
before them, and firing at random as they 
went. The sensible thing for Aline to do was of 
course to flatten herself against the wall and 
stay where she was, and of course she did not 
do it. She saw a flock of people running, 
and without asking why or wherefore, she 
started from her hiding place and turned and 



314 AN EPISODE OF TWO STEGESJ, 



ran with them. They flew along the Rue 
St. Honore till they came to the Rue Rohan. 
Here the band broke up into fragments, and 
many disappeared at opposite points, but one 
little group unluckily kept together, and 
though considerably diminished from the 
starting point, it still held in view and gave 
chase to the pursuers. Mademoiselle de 
Lunaque kept with this. On they flew like 
hares before the hounds, till rounding the 
corner of the Place Palais Royal they were 
stopped by two federals, who levelled their 
Chassepots and bid them stand ! The fugi- 
tives turned, not like hares at bay to face the 
hunters and die, but to rush into an open 
shop and fall on their knees and cry merci ! 

The pursuers were after them in a minute. 
But, instead of shooting them right off, they 
began to discuss the propriety of taking them 
out, and standing them in regulation order 
with their backs to the wall, and do- 
ing the thing in a proper, business-hke 
manner. 

While this parley was going on, Aline de 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 315 



Lunaque cast a glance round her and saw 
that her fellow- victims were two young lads 
and half-a-dozen women, all of - them of the 
working-class apparently, most of them wore 
caps. 

The men who were making ready to shoot 
them, like so many rats, without rhyme or 
reason, were evidently of the very dregs of 
the Commune, and looked half-drunk with 
blood, or wine, or both, it was hard to say ; 
all trace of manhood was blotted out from 
their faces, and there was little hope of 
mercy having still a lurking-place in their 
hearts. 

One of the women suddenly sprang to her 
feet. 

^^What!" she cried; ^^you call your- 
selves men, and you are going in cold blood 
to shoot unarmed women and boys. Shame 
on 'you for cowards ! There isn't a man 
amongst you ! " And she snapped her fingers 
right in their faces with an impudence that 
was positively sublime. 

The cowards were taken aback. They 



316 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



looked at eacli other, and tlien burst out 
laughing. 

Sapristi ! she's right/' exclaimed one 
of them, ^'they're not worth wasting our 
powder on ! " 

Like lightning the women were on their 
feet, fraternizing with the men, embracing, 
shaking hands, and swearing eternal friend- 
ship in true Communistic fashion. Made- 
moiselle de Lanaque alone stood aloof, a 
silent, terror-stricken spectator of the scene. 

What have we here ? Une canaille 
d'aristocrate, I'll be bound ! It's written on 
her face," said one of the ruffians, seizing her, 
by the arm ; " let us make away with her 
camarades ! It will be a good job for the Ee- 
public to rid it of one more of the lazy aristos 
that live by the ouvrier^s sweat." 

There was a lull in the kissiug and hand- 
shaking, and they turned to stare at Aline. 
Her life hung by a thread. A timid word, a 
guilty look, she was lost. But the soldier's 
blood rose up in her ; she bethought her of her 
obus and lanced it. 



I 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



317 



Lazy ! " she cried, I am a soldier's 
daughter ; my father fought for France, and 
left his children nothing but his sword. I 
work for my bread as hard as any of you ! " 

The effect was galvanic. They gathered 
round her and shouted. 

Bravo ! Bravo ! Donnez la main, 
citoyenne!" 

And Aline gave it ; like the statesman who 
thanked God he had a country to sellj she 
blessed her stars she had a hand to give. 

^ ^ 5^ ^ ^ 

Blood ran like water in the sewers for a 
feAV days, and then the troops remained 
masters of the field, and order was restored. 
Restored so far as to enable honest men to 
sleep in their beds at night. 

Madame de Chanoir 'was back again in 
the little salon at ISTo. 13. Her spine complaint 
had been radically cured by the Commune, 
and she sat erect in her chair now like other 
people. She was diligently reading the news- 
paper aloud to a gentleman who was lying on 
the sofa near her. The invalid's face and head 



318 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



were so elaborately swathed and bandaged 
that it was impossible to judge what either 
were like, while his bodily proportions disap- 
peared into vague rotundity under a volu- 
minous travelling-rug. He listened without 
comment for some time to the article which 
Madame de Chanoir was reading — a political 
tirade against France, and her soldiers, and her 
generals, and the nation at large, a sweeping 
anathema, in fact, of everybody and every- 
thing, till at last he could bear it no longer, 
and, sitting bolt upright, he exclaimed : 

" Madame, the man who wrote that 
article is a traitor. France is greater to-day 
in her unmerited misfortunes than she was in 
the apotheosis of her glory. She is more 
sublime in her widowed grief than her ignoble 
foe in his barbarous successes ! She is, in 
fact, still la France ! La situation est moment 
tanement compromise^ mats . . 

La, la voyons!'^ broke in Madame 
Clery, putting her head in at the door, and 
shaking the lid of a saucepan at the invalid, 
" how is the tisane to take effect if you will 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 319 



talk politics and put yourself in a rage about 
la situation^.' Madame la Generale. faites-le 
taire.^' 

The Generale, thus adjured, laid down the 
newspaper and gently insisted on Monsieur 
Dalibouze resuming his horizontal position on 
the couch. 

Aline was not there. She was off at her 
old work at the ambulance again. The hos- 
pitals had been replenished to overflowing by 
the street-fighting of the last week of the 
Commune, le denouement de la situation^ ae 
Monsieur Dalibouze called it, and nurses were 
in great demand. 

Citoyen Varlay had not turned up since 
the day they lost him in the crowd. The 
excitement and confusion which had reigned 
in the city ever since had made it diflScult to 
set effective inquiries on foot, even if the 
sisters had been accurately informed regard- 
ing their quondam guest's circumstances and 
identity, which they were not ; all they knew 
of him was his name, his appearance, and 
his wound. This was too vague to assist 



320 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 



mncli in the search.. Madame de Chanoir 
was sincerely sorry for it. She had been 
attracted at once by the frank bearing and 
conrteons manners of the young citoyen ; but 
the self-forgetfuhiess, the stoical contempt of 
bodily pain, and the cool courage he had dis- 
played on the occasion of their flight, had 
kindled sympathy into admiration, and she 
looked upon him now as a hero. She spoke 
of him constantly at first, loudly lamenting 
his loss ; for lost she believed him. He had, 
no doubt, been overpowered by the cro wd ; 
his disabled arm deprived him of half his 
strength, the remainder he expended in his 
efforts to save Aline, and that done he had 
probably fainted, and had been sufibcated or 
crushed to death. But when Madame de 
Chanoir mentioned to Ahne the conclusion 
she had arrived at, the deadly paleness that 
suddenly overspread her sister's features 
made Pelicite bifcterly regret her words. 
From that hour the young soldier's name 
was never pronounced between them. 

Madame Clery had formed, on her side. 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



321 



an enthusiastic affection for him, and sin- 
cerely regretted Ms fate; but, with a woman's 
instinct, she guessed that the one who re- 
gretted it most said least about it. She 
never mentioned Citoyen Varlay to Aline, 
but made up for the self-denial by pouring 
out his praises and her own grief into the 
sympathizing ear of the Generale. 

What a pretty couple they would have 
made!" said the old woman one morning, 
wiping her eyes in the corner of her apron, 
he was such a beau garqon^ and so merry ; 
he only wanted the particule to make him 
perfect. But who knows ? he may not have 
been as good as he looked. One never can 
trust t^io^e parvenus. '^^ 

A month passed. Madame de Chanoir 
was alone one afternoon when Madame Clery 
rushed into the room, panting with excite- 
ment, her eyes literally dancing out of her 
head. 

" Madame ! madame ! I guessed it ! I 

knew it ! I'm not that woman but to know 

a gentleman when I see him, and I tol^ 

21 



322 



AN EPISODE OF TWO SIEGES. 



madame he was ! Let madame never say but 
I did!" 

And, after this lucid preliminary expla- 
nation, she held out a card to her mistress. 

Madame de Chanoir took it^ and read 
aloud : 

Le Baron de Varlay, 

Avocat a la cour de cassation/^ 

Another month elapsed, and the great 
door of the Madeleine was opened for a double 
marria^'e. 

The first bridegroom was a tall, slight 
man who carried the word distingue stamped 
unmistakably on his face and figure. The 
second was a plump, dapper, little man who, 
as he walked up the carpeted aisle of the 
church, seemed hardly to touch the ground, so 
elastic wa& his step. His countenance beamed. 
He was radiant and, it is hardly a figure 
of speech to say, that he was buoyant 
with satisfaction. If he could have given 
utterance to the emotions that filled his 
soul, he would have said that la situation 



AN EPISODE OE TWO SIEGES. 323 



etait parfaite et ne laissait absolument rien a 
desirer." 

Madame Olery was present in iter monu- 
mental cap, trimmed witli Valenciennes, 
brand-new for tlie occasion, and a chintz 
gown with a peacock pattern on a pea-green 
ground, that would have lighted up a room 
without candles. She, too, looked the very 
personification of delight. The first couple 
was all her heart could wish, and more than 
her wildest ambition had ever dreamed of for 
her favourite Aline. The second she had 
gTown"philosophicallyreconciled to. The mar- 
riage had one drawback, a grievous one ; but 
the femme de menage consoled herself with 
the reflection that Madame de Chanoir might 
condone the bourgeoisie of her new name by 
signing herself : 

" Felicite Dalibouze, 
nee de Lunaque." 



London : 

Printed by Simmons & Botten, 4a, Shoe Lane, E.C, 




m 
S3 
S3 



